IC-NRLF 


PRICE,  FIFTY  CENTS. 


Ireland 


The  Pope. 


A    BRIC.F    HISTORY 


Of 


PAPAL   INTRIGUES 


AGAINST  IRISH  LIBERTY 


FROM 


Rdtfian  IV.  to  lieo  XIII. 


BY  JAMES  G.  MAGUIRE, 

JUDGE  OF  THE  SUPERIOR  COURT  OF  SAN  FRANCISCO,  CALIFORNIA 


48  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

the  hostility  or  indifference  of  those  who  succeeded 
to  the  control  of  public  affairs  after  the  increased 
;grant  of  1807,  but  the  college  endowment  did  not 
cease  to  form  a  strong  bond  of  union  between  the 
government  and  the  Vatican. 

The  strength  of  this  bond  may  be  surmised  from 
the  fact  that  the  Vatican  favored  a  public  statute, 
giving  the  English  Protestant  government  a 
voice  in  the  selection  of  Irish  Catholic  bishops. 
My  authority  for  this  statement  is  that  in  1810 
the  English  Catholics  charged  the  Irish  with 
1  'wavering  in  their  allegiance  to  the  pope"  be- 
cause they  opposed  the  measure,*  and  in  1814  pub- 
liehed  a  rescript  from  Pope  Pius  VII.,  expressly 
recommending  that  concession.  Daniel  O'Connell, 
subsequently  (in  1832),  speaking  of  this  period 
said:  "the  Catholic  laity  were  totally  repugnant  to 
allow  the  crown  any  power  to  nominate  the  Cath- 
olic bishops  of  Ireland. 

We  steadily  opposed  the  Court  of  Rome,  as  well 
as  the  inclination  shown  by  our  own  prelates;  we 
resolutely  resisted  the  wishes  of  our  nobility,  and 
of  so  many  of  our  merchants,  backed  as  they  were 
by  the  almost  universal  voice  of  the  Catholics  of 
England."! 

In  view  of  the  secret  relations  of  the  govern- 

*  Haverty's  Hist.,  p.  748. 
t  Haverty's  Hist.,  p.  761. 


THE    REPEAL    MOVEMENT.  49 

ment  and  the  Vatican,  as  subsequently  discovered, 
this  measure  seems  to  have  been  unimportant, 
since  the  government  already  enjoyed  the  secret 
privilege  of  doing  all  that  the  act  contemplated. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE  REPEAL  MOVEMENT  KILLED  BY  A  RESCRIPT. 

In  the  year  1829,  O'Connell  organized  the  great 
Repeal  movement,  which  has  immortalized  his 
name,  and  which  gave  such  bright  promise  of  ful- 
filling the  last  prayer  of  the  illustrious  Emmet. 
It  grew  with  amazing  rapidity.  Around  the 
leader  gathered  a  grand  galaxy  of  statesmen, 
poets,  and  orators,  whose  words  and  works  cast 
an  imperishable  luster  over  Erin's  race,  and  lent 
a  new  dignity  to  the  character  of  man.  The  peo- 
ple of  Ireland  believed  in  them  and  flocked,  not 
in  thousands,  nor  in  tens  of  thousands  merely, 
but  in  hundreds  of  thousands,  to  their  meetings, 
eager  to  learn  the  gospel  of  political  deliverance 
from  their  lips.  The  tide  of  this  political  move- 
ment rose  and  rolled  with  majestic  power.  Re- 
form after  reform  was  accomplished.  Proposi- 
tion after  proposition  was  made  by  the  English 
Government.  Anything  short  of  a  total  repeal  of 
the  Union  could  be  had  by  the  Irish  for  the  ask- 


REESE  LIBRARY 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


OA 


Ireland 

The  Pope. 

A    BRIEF    HISTORY 

OF 

PAPAL    INTRIGUKS 
AGAINST  IRISH  LIBERTY 

FROM 

IV.  to  Lieo 


BY  JAMES  G.  MAGUIRE, 

JUDGE  OF  TKE  SUPERIOR  COURT  OF  SAN  FRANCISCO,  CALIFORNIA. 


"  The  Rescript  must  be  obeyed." 

J.  CARDINAL  SIMEONI. 

"Aye, 

They  can  crush  us  as  in  ages  flown. 
What  to  them  is  a  nation's  anguish  ?  — 
othing  more  than  a  dying  groan." 


DIVERSITY) 

^^ 


SAN    FRANCISCO: 
JAMES    H.    BARRY,    429    MONTGOMERY    STREET. 

1888. 


COPYRIGHT,  1888,  BY  JAMES  G.  MAGUIKE. 

ALL    RIGHTS    RESERVED. 


DEDICATION. 


To  the  heroes  who,  in  spite  of  popes  and  kings, 
poured  their  blood  on  the  altar  of  Irish  liberty,  and 
thus  kept  alive  the  patriot  flame,  through  the  long 
centuries  of  Ireland's  night  of  slavery  ;  and  to  all 
the  living  priests  and  people  who  believe  that  Ire- 
land's struggle  for  liberty  should  not  be  postponed 
to  await  the  pleasure  of  any  foreign  potentate,  this 
book  is  affectionately  dedicated. 

THE  AUTHOR. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE. 
Dedication 3 

Preface . 5 

Chapter     I — Introduction 9 

II— Bull  of  Adrian  IV 14 

III— The  Bull  of  Pope  Alexander  III.  and  the  Synod 

of  Cashel 20 

IV— Humiliating  the  Irish  Priests  and  People 26 

V — Papal    Interference    with    Irish    Struggles   for 

Liberty  after  the  Conquest 38 

VI— The  Religious  Wars 41 

VII — A  sop  to  Cerberus 45 

VIII— The  Repeal  Movement  killed  by  a  Rescript 49 

IX — The  Young  Ireland  Movement  killed  by  Bishops 

and  Priests 57 

X — The  Fenian  Movement  Opposed  by  the  Church    71 
XI— The  Home  Rule  Movement  Opposed  by  the 

Church  73 

XII— The  Land  League  Opposed  by  the  Popa 76 

XIII— The  Last  Rescript 83 

XIV— Plan  of  Campaign  and  Boycott  vs.  Rack  Rent, 

Eviction  and  Rules  of  Estate 84 

XV— Pope  Leo's  Boycott  on  Dr.  McGlynn 96 

XVI— Vatican  Politics— the  Italian  Ring 100 

XVII— Conclusion 110 

List  of  Authorities 114 

Appendix  A— Full  translation  of  the  Bull  of  Pope  Adrian  IV. 

granting  Ireland  to  King  Henry  II 115 

Appendix  B— Full  translation  of  the  Bull  of  Pope  Alexander 

III.  confirming  the  grant  of  Adrian 116 

Appendix  C— The  text  of  the  last  Rescript 117 


PREFACE. 


This  book  is  written  to  supply  what  I  conceive 
to  be  not  only  a  demand  but  a  real  necessity.  Its 
purpose  is  to  show  the  wrong  and  injustice  of 
papal  interference  with  the  struggles  of  the  Irish 
people  to  regain  the  national  independence  which 
they  lost  through  the  treachery  of  an  English 
pope. 

To  show  the  extent,  persistence  and  deadly 
character  of  that  interference. 

And  to  point  out  the  necessity,  and  the  patriotic 
duty  of  firmly  and  constantly  rejecting  and  resist- 
ing every  political  edict,  issued  by  a  pope  or  inqui- 
sition, respecting  Irish  affairs. 

I  am  painfully  aware  of  the  extreme  difficulty,  if 
not  impossibility,  of  exposing  and  condemning 
the  political  errors  and  faults  of  one  who  is  the 
spiritual  head  of  a  church,  without  working  some 
injury  to  the  church  which  he  represents. 

To  the  delicacy  and  difficulty  of  this  position,  I 
attribute  the  otherwise  remarkable  circumstance 
that  the  very  interesting  and  important  facts 
herein  set  forth  have  never  before  been  presented 
in  any  collected  or  connected  form. 

But  the  occasion  demands  that  those  facts  be 
now  given  to  the  world  fully  and  fairly,  without 
either  malice  or  timidity.  Whatever  the  reader 


6  PREFACE. 

may  think  of  the  conclusions,  which  I  have  freely 
and  candidly  stated,  hfe  will  find  the  statements  of 
fact  to  be  reliable  and  can  readily  verify  all  the 
more  important  of  them  by  referring  to  the  author- 
ities which  I  have  fully  cited. 

I  conceive  it  to  be  a  most  marvelous  record  of  an 
alliance  of  centuries,  which  has  been  characterized 
by  constant  and  simple  faith  and  confidence,  on 
one  side,  and  equally  constant  duplicity,  ingratitude 
and  tyranny  on  the  other. 

To  the  ultramontanes  who  may  read  this  book 
and  whose  stereotyped  criticism  I  may  now  fairly 
anticipate,  I  have  but  to  say,  that  it  is  not  my 
fault  that  the  spiritual  heads  of  the  Catholic 
Church  claim  also  to  be,  by  divine  right,  temporal 
rulers,  theoretically,  over  all  nations,  and  in  ter- 
rible reality  over  Ireland. 

It  is  not  my  fault,  but  more  shame  to  them,  if 
the  publication  of  the  political  history  which  they 
have  made,  shall  disadvantage  the  church  whose 
spiritual  interests  were  confided  to  them,  and 
should  have  been  their  first  and  constant  care. 

On  this  subject  I  can  only  add  that  I  am  not 
in  the  business  of  proselyting  and  disclaim  any 
such  purpose. 

I  speak  neither  as  a  friend  nor  as  an  enemy  of  the 
Catholic  religion,  and  have  said  not  a  word  con- 
cerning its  doctrines,  its  principles,  its  sacraments 
or  its  forms. 

The  truth  or  falsity,  the  soundness  or  unsound- 
ness  of  the  articles  and  rules  of  faith  of  that  reli- 


PREFACE. 


7 


gion  have  nothing  to  do  with  Ireland's  right  to  in- 
dependent nationality  or  to  Home  Rule. 

I  desire,  above  all  things,  to  separate  those  two 

questions  by  a  wide  and  unmistakable  line,  and  to 

distinguish,  as  well  as   I   may,  between   the  dual 

—religious   and    political — capacities    which    the 

Pope,  unfortunately,  occupies. 

I  speak  as  an  American  descendant  of  the 
Irish  race;  as  an  admirer  of  the  Irish  character; 
as  a  sympathizer  in  the  struggles  and  trials  of  the 
Irish  people  and  in  their  hereditary  aspirations  for 
liberty. 

That  a  man  may  be  a  good  Catholic  and  at  the 
same  time  an  Irish  patriot,  seven  centuries  of  so- 
called  "sedition,"  in  which  the  people  were  often 
led  by  their  soggarths  aroon,  attest. 

That  a  man  may  reject  the  tenets  of  the  Catho- 
lic religion  and  yet  be  an  equally  good  Irish 
patriot,  bear  witness:  Grattan,  Emmet,  Wolfe 
Tone,  Davis,  Mitchel,  Parnell,  and  all  the  brave 
leaders  and  soldiers  of  Protestant  faith,  who,  for 
more  than  a  century,  have  graced  and  glorified  the 
political  and  military  struggles  for  Irish  liberty. 

While  I  believe  and  declare  that  religion  has 
and  should  have  nothing  to  do  with  Irish  poli- 
tics, I  have,  in  writing  this  book,  a  purpose  whteh 
the  public  mind  will  not  wholly  disconnect  from 
religion,  principally  because  the  art  and  finesse  of 
religio-political  Italian  statesmanship  have  so 
interwoven  questions  of  religion  and  politics. 

That  purpose  is  to  assist  in  raising  my  father's 


5  PREFACE. 

countrymen  and  my  own  kinsmen  above  that 
groveling1  fear  of  the  Pope,  which  makes  so 
many  of  them  nerveless  when  he  strikes  a  blow  at 
their  country  and  their  race,  and  above  their 
present  discreditable  confidence  in  men  who  have 
proved  themselves  "  the  veriest  slaves  of  treach- 
ery." 

There  is  no  other  people  on  earth  that  the  Pope 
would  treat  as  he  is  treating,  or  as  he  has  treated, 
the  Irish;  and  this  is  simply  because  there  is  no 
other  people  on  earth — not  even  one  of  the  half- 
Indian  states  of  South  America — that  would  tol- 
erate such  political  interference  at  his  hands. 

The  Pope,  in  this  respect,  enjoys  the  unenviable, 
not  to  say  infamous,  distinction  of  being  dangerous 
only  to  those  who  confide  in  him.  I  confidently 
expect  that  my  work  will  meet  with  the  approval 
not  only  of  Irish  patriots,  of  all  shades  of  religious 
belief,  but  that  it  will  be  acceptable  to  the  think- 
ing Catholics  of  every  country,  who  cannot  fail  to 
realize  how  greatly  the  true  interests  of  the  Catho- 
lic Church  would  be  advanced  by  relieving  it  of 
the  incubus  of  political  intrigue  against  which  my 
blows  are  aimed. 

JAMES  G.  MAGUIRE. 

San  Francisco,  June  4th,  1888. 


CHAPTER  I. 

INTRODUCTION. 

"  The  Holy  Father  must  have  been  misinformed 
by  evil  advisers,  or  he  would  never  have  taken 
sides  with  English  tyranny  and  landlord  robbery 
against  our  sorely  oppressed  and  long  suffering- 
people/'  said  a  devout  Catholic  and  brave  but  dis- 
heartened Irish  patriot  to  me  a  few  days  since. 
"Do  you  think,"  I  asked,  "that  Archbishop 
Walsh,  who  has  been  for  some  time  in  Rome  con- 
sulting with  the  Pope  on  the  Irish  question,  made 
false  statements  to  the  detriment  of  his  people  ?" 
"Oh,  no,  indeed/'  he  replied.  "I  refer  to  the 
Duke  of  Norfolk,  Errington,  Monsignor  Persico 
and  other  anti- Irish  aristocrats  and  Castle  Catho- 
lics, who  are,  unfortunately,  nearer  to  His  Holi- 
ness than  are  the  friends  of  Ireland." 

This  good  man  is  but  one  among  thousands, 
aye  millions,  who  firmly  believe  that  the  Pope  has 
been  imposed  upon  by  false  information  concern- 
ing the  Irish  question. 

The  absurdity  of  this  theory  must  beat  once  ap- 
parent to  all  who  stop  to  think  that  there  are  in  Ire- 


IO  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

i 

land  about  twenty-eight  bishops  and  archbishops, 
and  thousands  of  priests,  all  in  the  immediate  ser- 
vice of,  under  the  control  of,  and  in  direct  com- 
munication with,  the  Vatican,  and  that  this  great 
and  intelligent  body  of  men  are  thoroughly  con- 
versant with  the  minutest  details  of  the  every-day 
life  of  the  people  of  all  parts  of  Ireland. 

To  say  that  he  is  ignorant  of  the  true  state  of 
Irish  affairs  is  to  assume  that  he  does  not  think 
the  Irish  priesthood  worth  consulting;  and,  to  say 
that  he  has  been  deceived  by  a  few  English  and 
pro-English  intriguers,  is  to  assume  that  he  at- 
taches more  value  to  the  statements  of  a  few 
secret  emissaries  than  he  does  to  the  solemn  offi- 
cial testimony  of  this  great  body  of  pious  and  de- 
voted bishops  and  priests. 

No,  the  Pope  is  nqf  misinformed  concerning 
the  Irish  question.  He  has  acted  deliberately, 
upon  full  knowledge,  and  upon  a  resolution 
formed  more  than  one  year  ago,  and,  like  his 
sudden  support  of  Bismarck,  ."  the  arch  enemy 
and  persecutor  of  the  Catholic  Church,"  this  act 
had  a  political  price,  which  it  is  to  be  hoped  Lord 
Salisbury  may  never  be  able  to  pay. 

But,  you  may  ask  :  "What  evidence  have  you 
to  support  the  statement  that  the  present  papal 
blow  at  the  Irish  national  movement  was  premed- 


INTRODUCTION.  I  I 

itated  for  more  than  a  year?"     To  this  question 

I  answer*  by  presenting  the  two  principal  and  all- 
sufficient  facts,  namely: 

1.  Monsignor   Persico,  in  his  letter  of  Octo- 
ber last  to  the  Pope,  expressly  shows  that  he  was 
sent  to  Ireland  to  pave   the   way  for  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  Irish  National  League. 

2.  The  edict  is  in  perfect  harmony  with  the 
course   of  the  Vatican   concerning   Irish  political 
affairs  for  more  than  seven  hundred  years. 

Monsignor  Persico  was  not  sent  to  Ireland 
"for  the  purpose  of  learning,  by  actual  observa- 
tion, the  true  condition  and  political  methods  of 
the  Irish  people,"  as  the  telegraph  informed  us  at 
the  time  of  his  visit,  but  for  the  purpose  of  cajol- 
ing and  coercing  the  Irish  priesthood  into  leaving 
and  opposing  the  Irish  National  League. 

This  purpose  was  disclosed  by  the  publica- 
tion at  Rome  of  a  letter  sent  by  him  to  the 
Pope,  in  October  last,  in  which  he  expressed  re- 
gret that  his  mission  thus  far  had  been  a  failure, 
because  ''the  Irish  priests  would  not  abandon  the 
political  struggle  of  their  countrymen,  even  when 
urged  to  do  so  in  the  name  of  the  Pontiff  and  for 
the  good  of  the  Church." 

While   this  treacherous  ecclesiastical  statesman, 

II  this  genial  confidante  and  general  spy,"  who,  ac- 


12  IRELAND   AND    THE    POPE. 

cording  to  his  own  confession,  was  in  Ireland  as  a 
secret  enemy  of  the  Irish  cause,  doing  the  work  of 
4<  Bloody  Balfour  "  and  his  Tory  master,  he  was 
winning  loud  applause  from  the  Irish  people  by 
praising  "  with  mimic  openness  of  soul,"  their  de- 
votion and  submission  to  the  Holy  Father,  and 
assuring  them  of  the  latter's  deep  and  unwavering 
love. 

It  is  said  that  when  Cortez,  with  his  little  band 
of  freebooters,  entered  the  populous  and  hospitable 
districts  of  Mexico,  he  won  his  way  largely  by 
teaching  the  divine  truths  of  Christianity  to  the 
people  whom  he  had  come  to  rob  and  outrage,  to 
enslave  and  murder. 

I  believe  it  was  Lawrence  Sterne  who  said: 
"  Of  all  the  cants  that  were  ever  canted  in  this 
world,  the  cant  of  hypocrisy  is  the  worst." 

But  the  whole  history  of  Vatican  interference 
with  Irish  politics  shows  an  unbroken  line,  for 
seven  hundred  years,  of  acts  hostile  to  the  liber- 
ties and  natural  rights  of  the  Irish  people. 

The  subjugation  of  Ireland  to  English  rule,  as 
is  well  known  to  all  students  of  Irish  history,  was 
not  accomplished  by  the  force  of  English  arms, 
but  by  the  decree  and  grant  of  Pope  Adrian  IV.,* 

*  See  full  translation  of  bull,  Appendix  A. 


INTRODUCTION.  13 

supplemented  and  enforced  by  the  decrees  and 
orders  of  Pope  Alexander  III.* 

While,  as  I  have  said,  these  facts  are  well 
known  to  all  students  of  Irish  history,  and  while 
they  are  fully  attested  by  every  Irish  historian 
worthy  of  the  name, clerical  influences  have  always 
kept  the  great  masses  of  the  Irish  people  in  igno- 
rance of  them,  so  that  to-day  not  one  among  a 
hundred  of  the  Irish  people  knows  how  their  coun- 
try lost  her  nationality,  and  still  fewer  are  aware 
of  the  persistent  efforts  of  the  successors  of  Adrian 
and  Alexander  to  keep  Ireland  in  the  slavery  to 
which  their  infamous  bargain  delivered  her. 

I  shall,  therefore,  commence  with  the  beginning, 
and  make  a  plain,  brief  statement  of  the  facts  in 
chronological  order,  giving  specific  reference  to 
my  authorities,  so  that  those  who  have  the  leisure 
and  desire  may  conveniently  test  the  accuracy  of 
my  statements,  or  study  the  details  of  events  and 
transactions  of  which  I  can  here  give  but  a  gen- 
eral outline. 

Finding  the  standard  Irish  and  Catholic  histo- 
ries sufficiently  full  and  accurate  upon  these  ques- 
tions for  my  purpose,  I  have  rejected  all  others, 
save  in  the  matter  of  Lord  Palmerston's  intrigues 
with  the  Vatican,  the  most  satisfactory  evidence  of 

*  See  full  translation  of  bull,  Appendix  B. 


14  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

which  I  find  in  his  biography  ;  and  in  the  matter 
of  the  later  intrigues  of  Pius  IX.  and  Leo  XIII., 
which  have  not  yet  reached  the  pages  of  authentic 
Irish  history,  but  which  are  fresh  in  the  minds  of 
all  sympathizers  with  the  cause  against  which  they 
were  aimed. 

CHAPTER  II. 

BULL    OF    ADRIAN    IV. 

In  the  year  1152  Ireland  was  a  prosperous  and 
independent  nation,  holding  "  her  place  among 
the  nations  of  the  earth." 

Then  it  was  that:  "  Argosies,  laden  with  riches 
the  rarest,  gracefully  dipped  their  proud  ensigns  " 
to  her  banner. 

Her  people  were  Catholics,  and  had  for  many 
generations  looked  lovingly  to  the  Pope  of  Rome 
as  their  spiritual  father,  but  they  neither  owned 
nor  recognized  any  political  allegiance  to  him. 
Then,  as  now,  the  Irish  people  were  noted  for 
their  bravery,  chivalry  and  generosity;  but,  then, 
they  were  learned*  and  respected  for  that  most 
priceless  quality  of  respectability — political  inde- 
pendence— whilst  now,  and,  alas,  through  all  the 
dark  and  cruel  centuries  that  have  intervened,  they 
have  been  crushed  in  ignorance,  humiliation  and 

*  Pope  Adrian  himself  was  "instructed  in  philosophy  and  divinity  by 
Marianus  O'Gorman,  an  Irish  professor."  O'Halloran's  Hist.,  Bk.  XIII, 
Ch.  Ill,  p.  307. 


BULL    OF    ADRIAN    IV.  1 5 


dependence  between   the   upper  and    the   nether 
millstone  of  Italian  intrigue  and   British  tyranny. 

In  that  fatal  year  Cardinal  John Paparo  appeared 
in  Ireland*  as  the  special  legate  of  Pope  Eugenius 
III.  He  was  the  first  Italian  legate  ever  sent  to 
Ireland — may  Persico  be  the  last!  He  summoned 
the  bishops  and  principal  priests  to  the  Synod  of 
Kells,  and  there  delivered  palliumst  to  the  arch- 
bishops, taking  their  oaths  of  obedience  to  the 
Pope. 

From  that  hour  dates  the  downfall  of  Irish 
nationality.  The  spirit  of  Clontarf  never  ceased 
to  animate  them,  but  from  that  hour  the  children 
of  Erin,  though  foremost  and  bravest  in  the 
armies  of  liberty  throughout  the  world,  have  been 
slaves  at  home  The  people  who  had  over- 
whelmed the  powerful  Danes  and  driven  them 
from  their  shores,  tamely  bowed  their  heads  to  re- 
>  ceive  the  yoke  of  the  Saxons.  Why?  We  need 

*  Haverty's  Hist.  Ireland,  Chap.  XVL,  p.  162. 

t  The  pallium  is  "  a  band  of  white  wool,  worn  on  the  shoulders.  It 
has  two  strings  of  the  same  material  and  four  purple  crosses  worked  on  it. 
It  is  worn  by  the  Pope  and  sent  by  him  to  patriarchs,  primates,  archbishops, 
and  sometimes,  though  rarely,  to  bishops  as  a  token  that  they  possess  the 
'fullness  of  the  episcopal  office'.  Two  lambs  are  brought  annually  to  the 
church  of  St.  Agnes  at  Rome,  by  the  Apostolic  sub-deacons,  while  the 
'Agnus  Dei'  is  being  sung.  These  lambs  are  presented  at  the  altar  and 
received  by  two  canons  of  the  Lateran  Church.  From  this  wool  the  pallia 
are  made  by  the  nuns  of  Torre  de  Specchi.  The  sub-deacons  lay  the  pallia 
on  the  tomb  of  St.  Peter,  where  they  remain  all  night." 

Catholic  Dictionary,  Addis  &  Arnold,  Tit.   "Pallium." 


J  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

not  seek  far  for  the  answer.  With  the  coming  of 
Cardinal  Paparo,  his  palliums  and  his  oaths  of 
obedience,  came  also  the  claim  of  temporal  sov- 
ereignty asserted  by  the  Pope. 

This  temporal  power  was  speedily  turned  to  the 
Pope's  financial  and  political  advantage.     In  the 
year  1154  Henry  II.  became  King  of  England,and 
shortly  afterwards  sent  John  of  Salisbury  to  Rome 
as   a  Royal  emissary.*  The  King  desired  to  add 
Ireland  to  his  kingdom,  and   the  Pope  desired  to 
put   Ireland   under   tribute   to   the    Vatican  ;    the 
Irish     people     having     previously     "paid    those 
small   dues  called   Peter's  pence    to   the    See   of 
Armagh,  which  the  rest  of  Europe  paid  to  Rome."t 
In  the  year   1156   Pope   Adrian  IV.   gave    to 
Henry  II.,  King  of  England,  a  bull  granting  to 
him  the  political  sovereignty  of  Ireland;  address- 
ing him  as  "  my  dearest  son  in  Christ,  the  illustri- 
ous King  of  England;"  authorizing  him  "  to  enter 
Ireland,  to  reduce  the  people  to  obedience  under 
the  laws,  and  to  extirpate   the  plants  of  vice/'  on 
condition  that  he  would  "  pay  from  each  (meaning 
from  each   Irish  family)  a  yearly  pension  of  one 
penny  to  St.  Peter,  and  that  you  will  preserve  the 
rights  of  the  churches  of  this  land  in  violate.  "J 

*  Haverty'sHist.,  Chap.  XVIII.,  p.  188. 

t  O'Halloran's  Hist.  Ireland,  Bk.  XII.,  Chap.  VI.,  p.  286. 

$  This  bull,  copies  of  which  are  in  the  ancient  Vatican  records,  is  pub- 


BULL    OF    ADRIAN    IV.  17 

The  genuineness  of  this  bull  is  attested  by  all 
of  the  Irish  historians,  except  Abbe  MacGeoghe- 
gan^  and  Thomas  Mooney,  from  Geraldus  Cam- 
brensis  in  1178,  to  the  Nun  of  Kenmare  in  1876, 
and  the  last  edition  of  Haverty  by  Thomas 
Kelly  in  1885.! 

The  Nun  of  Kenmare  says  of  this  bull: 
"  There  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt  of  the  authen- 
ticity of  this  document.  Baronius  publsihed  it 
from  the  Codex  Vaticanus\  John  XXII.  (Pope), 
annexed  it  to  his  brief  addressed  to  Edward  II. 
(Edward  III.);  and  John  of  Salisbury  (Catholic 
Bishop  of  Chartres,  then  secretary  to  the  Arch- 
of  Canterbury,  states  distinctly  in  his  Metalogicus, 
that  he  obtained  this  bull  from  Adrian.  "J 

To  the  same  effect,  citing  further  proofs,  is 
Haverty,||  while  Dr.  O'Halloran  ("The  Irish 

li'shed  in  full,  in  the  original  Latin  text,  by  Dr.  O'Halloran  (Hist.  p.  310), 
and  full  translations  are  published  by  O'Halloran  (Hist.  p.  305);  Haverty 
(Hist.  p.  189) ;  Wright  (Hist.  Ireland,  p.  85) ;  Ferguson  (The  Irish  Before 
the  Conquest,  p.  288);  and  Walsh  (Irish  Hierarchy,  p.  662.)  See  Ap- 
pendix A. 

*  In  his  history  of  Ireland,  as  translated  by  Dr.  Kelly  (p.  18),  the  Abbe 
states  that  the  bull  was  procured  from  Adrian,  but  he  subsequently  makes 
an  argument  to  discredit  its  genuineness. 

t  O'Halloran's  Hist.,  pp.  305  to  311  ;  Haverty's  Hist.,  pp.  187  to  193  ; 
McGee's  Hist.  Ireland,  Vol.  I,  p.  136;  Carew's  Ecclesiastical  Hist.  Ire- 
land, pp.  282-3-6  ;  Cusack  (Nun  of  Kenmare)  Hist.  Ireland,  pp.  274-5; 
McCarthy's  Outlines  of  Irish  Hist.,  p.  24;  O'Callaghan's  Notes  and 
Illustrations  in  "Macariae  Excidium" ;  Wright's  Hist.  Ireland,  p.  85; 
Walsh's  Irish  Hierarchy,  pp.  661-2. 

%  Hist.,  p.  275,  note. 

II  Hist.,  p.  190  and  note. 


1 8  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

Livy ")   and    Dr.   O'Callaghan   very  conclusively 
prove  its  genuineness. 

• 

St.  Lawrence  O'Toole  and  other  leading  bish- 
ops of  Ireland  conversed  with  Pope  Alexander 
III.  about  this  bull,  and  his  own  confirmatory  bull, 
at  the  third  general  council  of  Lateran  in  1179, 
and  the  Pope  ''became  at  length  convinced  that  in 
the  confirmatory  brief  which  he  had  drawn  up  for 
Henry,  he  had  been  grossly  deceived,  and  that  the 
terms  that  were  employed  in  that  official  document 
were  as  severe  as  they  had  been  unmerited  and 
uncalled  for."^  He  was  justly  indignant,  but  he 
did  not  recall  the  bull. 

Gerald  de  Barri  (Geraldus  Cambrensis,)  a  lead- 
ing Catholic  prelate  of  the  time  of  Popes  Adrian, 
and  Alexander,  noted  for  having  preached  the 
principal  sermon  before  the  Synod  of  Dublin  in 
1177,  published  in  the  year  1178,  during  the  life- 
time of  Alexander,  a  history  of  Ireland  in  which 
he  inserted,  in  full,  the  bulls  of  both  Adrian  and 
Alexander  in  the  Latin  text,  and  their  genuineness 
was  not  challenged. f 

I  n  addition  to  the  frail  denials  of  MacGeoghegan 
and  Mooney,  following  him,  I  have  before  me  a 
very  ingenious  but  radically  defective  essay  by 

*  Walsh's  Irish  Hierarchy,  pp.  663-4. 

t  O'Halloran  Hist.,  Bk.  XIII.,  Chap.  III.,  pp.  306-7. 


BULL    OF    ADRIAN    IV.  1 9 

Bishop  Moran  of  Ossory,*  written  to  prove  that 
the  alleged  bull  of  Adrian  was  "a  great  Norman 
forgery."  He  discredits  the  statement  of  Cardi- 
nal Baronius,  made  three  hundred  years  ago,  that 
he  had  copied  the  bull  of  Adrian  from  the  "Vati- 
can Manuscript,"  because  he  (Moran)  could  not 
find  the  same  manuscript  three  hundred  years 
later. 

He  also  discredits  the  Bullarium  Romanum  (a 
collection  of  papal  bulls  made  under  the  authority 
of  the  Holy  See),  printed  over  one  hundred  and 
fifty  years  ago. 

He  also  discredits  the  statement  of  John  of 
Salisbury,  Bishop  of  Chartres,  made  and  pub- 
lished over  seven  hundred  years  ago,  that  he 
(John)  had  personally  received  the  bull  from 
Adrian  and  delivered  it  to  Henry  II. 

Verily,  "  faith  will  move  mountains"  of  histor- 
ical evidence.  There  are  other  very  conclusive 
proofs  of  its  genuineness,  to  which  he  does  not 
refer  at  all. 

Father  Burke's  statement  that  this  bull  was  a 
forgery  is  based  entirely  on  this  essay  of  Dr. 
Moran,  and  may  be  dismissed  with  it.f 

*  Irish  Am.  Library,  "English  Misrule  in  Ireland,"  p.  224. 
t  English  Misrule  in  Ireland,  pp.  27-8. 


2O  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  BULL  OF  POPE  ALEXANDER  III.  AND  THE 
SYNOD  OF  CASHEL. 

Henry  II.,  for  various  reasons  connected  with 
the  vicissitudes  of  England,  did  not  make  any  use, 
now  known  to  us,  of  the  Bull  of  Adrian  for  fifteen 
years  after  receiving  it.  Adrian  being  then  dead, 
Henry  applied  to  Pope  Alexander  III.  for  a  con- 
firmation of  the  grant  of  Ireland.  In  the  year 
1172  Pope  Alexander  issued  a  bull  addressed  to 
his  t(  most  dear  son  in  Christ,  the  illustrious  King 
of  England,"  and  commencing  thus  :  "  For- 
asmuch as  these  things  which  have  been,  on  good 
reasons,  granted  by  our  predecessors,  deserve  to 
be  confirmed  in  the  fullest  manner;  and  consider- 
ing the  grant  of  the  Dominion  of  Ireland  by  the 
venerable  Pope  Adrian,  we,  pursuing  his  foot- 
steps, do  ratify  and  confirm  the  same,  reserving  to 
St.  Peter  and  to  the  Holy  Roman  Church,  as  well 
in  England  as  in  Ireland,  the  yearly  pension  of 
one  penny  from  every  house. "* 

That  everlasting  yearly  "penny  from  every 
house"  again — the  price  of  poor  Ireland's  liberty  ! 

*  O'Halloran's  Hist.,  p.  306;  Wright's  Hist.,  p.  86;  Haverty's  Hist.,  p. 
191. 


THE    SYNOD    OF    CASHEL.  21 

It  has  been  faithfully  paid.  England's  promise 
to  the  Vatican  has  been  faithfully  fulfilled  to  the 
letter;  but  alas,  every  penny  of  the  tribute  has 
been  stained  with  the  blood  and  tears  of  Erin's 
subjugated  children. 

Armed  with  these  bulls,  King  Henry,  who, 
before  receiving  the  last,  had  entered  Ireland 
(October  i8th,  1171),  claiming  it  under  that  of 
Adrian  IV.,  immediately  summoned  the  principal 
clergy  of  Ireland  to  meet  in  conference  at  Cashel. 

This  conference  is  historically  known  as  the 
"Synod  of  Cashel."  Here  the  Bulls  of  Adrian 
and  Alexander  were  read,  and,  "in  the  name  of 
the  Sovereign  Pontiff,  the  clergy  and  people  of 
Ireland  were  called  upon  to  receive  Henry  the 
Second  of  England  as  their  king."* 

At  this  Synod  the  Pope's  Legate  presided,  St. 
Gelasius,  the  Primate  of  Ireland,  having  refused 
to  attend.f 

Mooney  (who  attempts  to  prove  the  bulls  for- 
geries, to  shield,  as  far  as  possible,  the  honor  of 
the  Vatican)  says  that  they  were  read  at  this 
Synod,  and  thus  graphically  describes  their  effect: 
"  Each  man  looked  at  his  neighbor,  not  knowing' 
what  decision  to  make.  The  ecclesiastics  were 

*  O'Halloran's  Hist.,  p.  305;  Mooney's  Hist.,  p.  561,  et  seq. 
t  O'Halloran's  Hist.,  pp.  310  and  313;  Walsh's  Irish  Hierarchy,  p.  195. 
et  seq. 


22  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

seized  with  panic  and  indecision.  Some  of  the 
clergy  inclined  to  the  admonitions  of  the  Pope  and 
submitted  to  Henry,  whilst  others  went  their  ways 
to  their  respective  provinces,  as  much  in  grief  as 
in  anger.  Some  of  the  secondary  chiefs  of  the 
south  gave  up  their  territories  to  Henry,  receiving 
the  same  back  to  hold  as  his  vassals;  and,  as  this 
act  of  submission  appeared  not  humiliating,  owing 
to  the  acquiescence  of  so  many  of  the  clergy  in  the 
ordinance  of  the  See  of  Rome,  Henry  obtained 
the  adherence  of  seven  counties  without  striking  a 


Martin  Haverty,  while  admitting  the  genuine- 
ness of  the  bulls,  also  attempts  to  shield  the  Popes, 
by  claiming  that  the  bulls  had  very  little  to  do 
with  the  submission  of  the  Irish  people  to  the  rule 
of  England.  This  is  contrary  to  the  proofs  of  all 
contemporaneous  history,  and  is  simply  absurd.  f 
Five  hundred  and  seventy-three  years  ago,  when 
the  details  of  her  subjugation  were  fresh  in  the 
public  and  private  annals  of  Ireland,  and  in  the 
full  traditions  of  her  sorrowing  people,  Donnell 
O'Neill,  King  of  Ulster,  wrote  his  celebrated, 
learned,  and  statesmanlike  letter  to  Pope  John 
XXII.,  protesting  against  the  great  injustice  done 
to  Ireland  by  the  Vatican,  and  declaring  that 

*  Mooney's  Hist.,  p.  561. 
t  Hist.,  p.  189. 


O'NEILL'S  LETTER  TO  POPE  JOHN.  23 

Ireland    was    subjugated    solely    by    the    bull    of 
Adrian. 

Here  is  a  striking  passage  from  his  letter  . 

ft  During  the  course  of  so  many  ages  (three 
thousand  years)  our  sovereigns  preserved  the  in- 
dependency of  their  country;  attacked  more  than 
once  by  foreign  powers,  they  wanted  neither  force 
nor  courage  to  repel  the  bold  invaders:  but  that 
which  they  dared  to  do  against  force -,  they  could  not 
do  against  the  simple  decree  of  one  of  your  prede- 
cessors— A  drian . "  * 

Whether  the  bulls  of  Adrian  and  Alexander 
were  forged  or  genuine  is  a  matter  of  small  conse- 
quence compared  with  the  doubly  established  fact 
that  the  claim  of  temporal,  kingly  authority  (as 
distinguished  from  religious  authority)  over  Ire- 
land by  the  popes,  and  the  acknowledgment  of  that 
claim  by  the  Irish  people,  caused  the  subjugation 
of  Ireland  to  English  rule.  If  that  claim  had  not 
been  acknowledged,  the  bulls,  whether  forged  or 
genuine,  would  have  been  repudiated,  and  the 
armies  of  Henry  would  have  been  driven  into  the 
sea.f 

But  the  genuineness  of  these  bulls  is  over- 
whelmingly proved  by  historical  evidence,  and 

*  O'Halloran's  Hist.,  p.  307;  Mooney's  Hist.,  p.  564;    Haverty's  Hist., 

;P-  255- 

t  O'Halloran's  Hist.,  p.  305;*  Mooney's  Hist.,  pp.  560-2-4-8. 


24  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

that  which  I  have  cited  is,  for  the  present,  quite 
sufficient. 

The  contradictions  among  recognized  Irish 
historians,  concerning  the  reading  of  the  bulls  at 
the  Synod  of  Cashel,  results,  probably,  from  the 
fact  that  no  formal  action  was  taken  on  them  by  the 
Synod  as  a  body. 

But  that  they  were  read  and  that  there  were  in- 
dividual submissions  of  the  clergy  to  King  Henry, 
in  consequence,  is  well  attested. 

Henry's  only  ostensible  purpose  in  summoning 
the  Synod  of  Cashel  was  to  make  a  pretense  of 
carrying  out  the  church  reforms  confided  to  him 
by  the  bulls,  and  his  only  real  purpose  was  to  se- 
cure, upon  the  strength  of  the  bulls,  the  submission 
of  as  many  of  the  political  and  religious  leaders  of 
the  country  as  possible. 

Strange  indeed,  if  he  failed  to  produce  or  men- 
tion documents  from  which  he  expected,  and  had 
good  reason  to  expect,  so  much.  He  did  produce 
them  and  the  people  were  paralyzed  by  them.  Just 
as  the  Roman  populace  was  paralyzed  with  terror 
by  the  excommunication  of  the  gallant  Rienzi, 
who  had  led  them  in  driving  the  plundering  Orsini 
and  Colonna  families  and  their  brigand  followers 
from  the  Eternal  City. 

But  the  efforts  of  the  Vatican  in  aid  of  King 


SYNOD    OF    DUBLIN.  25 

Henry's  conquest  of  Ireland  did  not  end  with  the 
Synod  of  Cashel. 

In  the  year  1177  a  Synod  was  summoned  in 
Dublin  by,  and  was  held  under,  Vivian,  the  Pope's 
Legate  for  Ireland. 

"In  this  Synod,"  says  Rev.  P.  J.  Carew, 
Professor  of  Divinity  in  the  Catholic  College  of 
Maynooth, Ireland  (citing  Dr.  Lanigan's  History), 
"the  Legate  set  forth  Henry's  right  to  the  sover- 
eignty of  Ireland,  in  virtue  of  the  Pope's  author- 
ity, and  inculcated  the  necessity  of  obeying  him 
under  pain  of  excommunication"* 

Until  that  time  the  Catholic  Churches  were  in- 
violable sanctuaries  into  which  the  hunted  people 
might  flee,  and  in  which  their  lives  were  safe 
from  murder  and  their  property  from  spoliation. 
At  this  Synod  of  Dublin,  the  Pope  through  his 
Legate  made  Ireland  an  exception  to  this  rule, 
and  gave  leave  to  the  English  soldiers  to  enter 
the  churches  and  strip  the  people  of  the  food 
brought  there  for  safety,  f  Since  these  things  were 
done  by  the  Vicar  of  Christ,  how  terrible  to  con- 
template what  the  Vicar  of  Hell  would  have  done 
under  similar  circumstances. 


*  Carew's  Ecclesiastical  Hist.  Ireland,  p.  437  ;  Walsh's  Irish  Hierarchy,, 
p.  109;  Dolby's  Hist.  Ireland,  p.  31. 
t  Dolby's  Hist.,  p.  31. 


26  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

HUMILIATING    THE    IRISH    PRIESTS    AND    PEOPLE. 

In  the  year  1 180  King  Henry,  "who  persecuted 
the  Holy  Prelate,  St.  Lawrence,  for  his  ardent  at- 
tachment to  the  land  of  his  birth,  resolved  that 
an  office  of  so  much  importance  (the  Arch- 
bishopric of  Dublin),  should  not  be  entrusted  to 
an  Irishman.  ^  Accordingly  on  the  monarch's 

recommendation,  his  Chaplain,  John  Comyn,  a 
native  of  England,  was  elected  to  the  Arch- 
bishopric of  Dublin,  by  some  of  the  clergy  who 
had  assembled  at  Evesham  for  that  purpose. 
John  was  not  then  a  priest,  but  was  in  the  follow- 
ing year  ordained,  and  was  consecrated  by  Pope 
Lucius  III.,"  who,  at  the  request  of  the  King, 
released  the  new  archbishop  and  his  arch- 
diocese from  the  control,  and  even  from  the  visi- 
tations, of  the  Irish  Primate  of  Ireland.* 

From  that  time  to  the  present — from  Comyn  to 
McCabe,  at  least — the  British  Government,  as 
well  since  it  became  Protestant  as  while  it  was 
Catholic,  has  generally  dictated,  either  directly  or 
indirectly,  the  appointment  of  most  of  the  Catholic 
archbishops  and  even  bishops  of  Ireland.  It  be- 
came at  one  time  a  common  saying  that :  "  Ire- 
land gets  her  rent  receipts  and  archbishops  from 
England." 

*   Walsh's  Irish  Hierarchy,   p.    no;    Dolby's  Hist.,  p.  33; 


ENGLISH    INTRIGUES.  27 

Since  the  reformation,  the  government  negoti- 
ations with  the  Vatican  have  been  conducted  by 
secret  emissaries  and  are  difficult  of  discovery,  but 
occasionally  an  uncovered  track  is  found  which 
discloses  something,  and  indicates  a  great  deal  more. 
For  example,  in  a  letter  written  by  Lord  Palmers- 
ton  (then  English  secretary  of  foreign  affairs)  to  his 
brother,  May  i2th,  1834,  occurs  the  following  : 
"  I  am  sending  off  a  messenger  suddenly  to  Flor- 
ence and  to  Rome  to  try  to  get  the  Pope  not  to 
appoint  an  agitating  prelate  Archbishop  of  Tuam, 
and  I  write  a  few  lines  by  him  to  you,  as  he  may 
as  well  go  on  to  Naples  from  Rome  while  the 
Pope  is  pondering  upon  his  answer."* 

Greville's  Memoirs  shed  further  light  on  this 
subject.  Speaking  of  Lord  Melbourne  (then 
Home  Secretary  under  Grey's  Administration)  he 
says  :  "'He  told  me  that  an  application  had  been 
made  to  the  Pope  *  *  *  *  not  to  appoint 
McHale  to  the  vacant  Catholic  bishopric.  *  '* 
His  Holiness  said  that  he  'had  remarked 
for  a  long  time  past  that  no  piece  of  preferment 
of  any  value  ever  fell  vacant  in  Ireland  that  he 
did  not  get  an  application  from  the  British  Gov- 
ernment asking  for  the  appointment.'  Lord  Mel- 
bourne, *  in  reply  to  my  question, 
admitted  that  the  Pope  had  generally  conferred  the 

*  Evelyn  Ashley's  Life  of  Lord  Palmerston;  Chas.  Gavan  Duffy's  Young 
Ireland,  p.  211. 


28  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

appointment  according  to  the  wishes  of  the  Gov- 
ernment." After  commenting  upon  the  *  'regular 
underhand  intercourse"  established  between  the 
Government  and  the  Vatican  and  the  constant 
solicitation  of  appointments  from  the  Pope,  he 
adds  :  "the  Pope,  who  is  the  object  of  our  ortho- 
dox abhorrence  and  dread,  good-humoredly  com- 
plies with  all,  or  nearly  all,  of  their  requests!'* 

On  the  1 4th  of  September,  1808,  the  Catholic 
bishops  of  Ireland  met  in  synod  in  Dublin 
and  passed,  among  others,  the  following  resolu- 
tion :  "That  the  Roman  Catholic  prelates  pledge 
themselves  to  adhere  to  the  rules  by  which  they 
have  been  hitherto  uniformly  guided — namely,  to 
recommend  to  his  Holiness  (for  appointment  as 
Irish  Roman  Catholic  bishops)  only  such  persons 
as  are  of  unimpeachable  loyalty"^ 

This  accounts  for  the  pro-English  sentiments  of 
so  many  Irish  bishops,  and  accounts  for  the  ap- 
pointment of  the  Murrays,  and  Moriartys,  and 
Cullens,  and  McCabes,  and  so  on  ad  nauseam,  ad 
infinitum. 

But,  enough;  the  story  of  the  humiliation  and 
degradation  of  Ireland's  patriotic  priests  to  the 
domination  of  Englishmen,  Italians,Spaniards  and 

*  Young  Ireland,  p.  21 1. 
t  Haverty's  Hist.,  p.  746. 


ENGLISH  TLESH    ANL>    IRISH    FISH.  2Q 

X,  ^ 

anti-Irish  Irishmen  is  a  long  one,  and  interesting, 
but  the  studied  attempt  to  degrade  the  Irish  race, 
as  such,  is  of  more  importance, 

In  the  1 3th  and  i4th  centuries  such  race  preju- 
dices had  arisen  between  the  Irish  and  Anglo- 
Irish  in  Ireland  that  they  each  established  rules, 
excluding  the  other  from  their  canonries  (religious 
colleges)  and  religious  houses. 

Complaint  being  made  to  Pope  Innocent  IV., 
he  issued  a  bull  requiring  the  Irish  to  admit  the 
English  and  Anglo- Irish  to  their  canonries. 

Complaint  being  afterwards  made  by  the  Irish 
to  Pope  Leo  X.,  he  issued  a  bull  confirming  the 
right  of  the  English  to  exclude  the  Irish  from  their 
canonries.* 

Under  this  bull  Irish  ecclesiastics  and  students 
were  excluded  from  institutions  which  had  been 
founded  and  endowed  by  their  own  Irish  ances- 
tors, t 

"Consistency,  thou  art  a  jewel,"  but,  surely, 
Rome  cannot  be  charged  with  inconsistency  in 
dealing  with  the  Irish.  She  has  been  consistently 
and  constantly  unjust  and  insulting  to  them. 

She  has  found  them  confiding  and  obedient, 
while  she  has  spurned  and  spat  upon  them,  and 

*  Cambrensis  Eversus,  by  Dr.  Kelly,  Vol.  II.,  p,.  543;  Haverty's  Hist., 
PP.  253-4,  note. 

t  Haverty's  Hist.,  p.  255. 


3°  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

she  has  spurned  and  'spat  upon  them  inces- 
santly, apparently  for  no  other  reason  than  that 
she  has  found  them  still  confiding  and  obedient, 
and  that  their  humiliation  pleased  and  conciliated 
a  more  independent  power. 

There  is  a  general  impression  to  the  effect  that 
the  persecution  of  the  Irish  is  due  mainly  to  reli- 
gious prejudice,  but  no  man  who  has  read  deeply 
of  Irish  history  can  harbor  such  a  delusion. 

The  English  government  and  the  Irish  land- 
lords (joint  persecutors  and  plunderers  of  the  race) 
care  very  little  to  what  church  an  Irishman  goes 
while  living,  or  to  what  sphere  his  soul  may  be 
consigned  after  his  death.  The  pretense  to  the 
contrary  is  a  hollow  sham,  but  it  has  a  purpose. 
By  dividing  the  people  into  hostile  religious  fac- 
tions, and  setting  them  to  fight  each  other,  the 
natural  power  of  the  Irish  is  greatly  reduced,  and 
the  difficulty  of  perpetuating  the  enslavement  of 
both  factions  is  greatly  lessened. 

Besides,  one  of  the  factions  would  naturally  ally 
itself  to  the  Protestant  Government  of  England, 
while  the  other  would  as  naturally  ally  itself  to  the 
head  of  the  Catholic  Church.  The  Government 
and  the  Pope  acting  in  concert  through  the  ''reg- 
ular underhand  intercourse"  of  which  Greville 
speaks,  and  which  Petre,  Errington  and  Norfolk 


RACE    AND    RELIGION.  31 

have  so  lately  exemplified,  the  wisdom  of  the  Gov- 
ernment's promotion  of  religious  feuds  among  the 
Irish  people  is  apparent. 

"It  should  not  be  forgotten  that  it  has  always 
been  the  policy  of  the  English  Government  in 
Ireland  to  foment  religious  dissentions  there  as  a 
powerful  means  of  perpetuating  its  own  dominion."^ 

That  religious  differences  are  not  the  cause  of 
Irish  persecution,  is  conclusively  proved  by  the 
fact  that  the  most  cruel  and  barbarous  persecution 
of  the  Irish  people  took  place  during  and  through- 
out the  period  of  four  hundred  years  before  Eng- 
land became  protestant;  and  while  the  Kings  of 
England  were  the  Pope's  "beloved  sons  in  Christ," 
as  they  were  affectionately  termed. 

Speaking  on  this  subject.  Rev.  R.  A.  Byrne,  in 
a  lecture  on  "The  Free  Schools  of  Ancient  Ire- 
land/' pertinently  said:  "In  1380  it  was  enacted 
(at  Downpatrick  Abbey)  that  no  mere  Irishman 
should  be  allowed  to  make  his  profession  in  the 
Abbey. 

This  is  but  in  keeping  with  the  spirit  of  English 
Catholic  domination  in  Ireland  everywhere.  This 
anti-Irish  feeling  is  of  no  modern  date,  and  by  no 
means  owes  its  origin  to  the  introduction  of  Pro- 
testantism. Heny  VIII.  was  a  bad  man  * 

*  Ireland  of  To-day,  by  M.  F.   Sullivan,  p.  369. 


32  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

but  the  deadly  wounds  that  laid  Erin  low  were 
struck  by  the  assassin  hands  of  his  Catholic  fore- 
fathers."* 

It  was  this  same  English  Catholic  spirit  that  an- 
imated that  typical  English  priest,  Monsignor 
Capel,f  when  he  said  at  Metropolitan  Hall,  in  this 
city,  that,  in  his  opinion,  "the  Irish  famine  of 
1847-8  was  a  God's  blessing." 

Daniel  O'Connell,  in  1813,  said  'The  English 
do  not  dislike  us  as  Catholics;  they  simply  hate 
us  as  Irish. "J 

John  Mitchell  most  happily  and  truly  stated  the 
situation  when  he  said,  that  to  England  the  ma- 
terial wealth  of  the  Irish  was  "far  more  valuable 
than  their  souls." 

But  the  English  Protestant  people,  as  a  people, 
where  they  are  even  partially  free  from  the  in- 
fluence of  caste,  which  affects  both  Protestants  and 
Catholics  alike,  and  from  that  hydra-headed  mon- 
ster of  bigotry,  which  in  both  countries  is  mis- 
called religion,  have  no  such  prejudice  against  the 
Irish  race.  This  was  well  proved  during  the  years 
of  famine,  when  "the  good  will  of  the  English 
people"  was  shown  by  their  subscription  of  more 
than  two  million  dollars,  to  relieve  the  distress  of 

*  Ireland  as  She  Is,  by  J.  J.  Clancy,  p.  82. 

+  "Domestic  Prelate  to  His  Holiness  Pope  Leo  XIII."   THE  POPE,  p.  I. 

i  Ireland  as  She  Is,  p.  80. 


MARKET    VALUE    OF    IRISHMEN.  33 

the  Irish;  some,  at  least,  of  the  English  people, 
going  even  without  butter  on  their  bread,  "in  order 
that  some  money  might.be  saved  for  the  starving 
poor  of  Ireland."^ 

It  is  therefore  not  to  English  Catholics  nor  to 
Italian  Catholics  that  Ireland  must  look  for  sym- 
pathy and  succor  in  her  struggle  for  political  lib- 
erty and  civil  justice,  but  to  the  lovers  of  Liberty 
and  Justice,  of  all  shades  of  religious  belief, 
throughout  the  world. 

She  has  been  sadly  handicapped  in  her  struggle, 
by  her  dependence,  on  the  broken  reed  of  Roman 
honor. 

I  must  close  this  prolific  branch  of  my  subject 
with  one  more  general  statement  and  a  couple  of 
historical  examples. 

Under  all  "their  Catholic  Majesties,"  from 
Henry  II.  to  Henry  VIII.  (nearly  400  years),  the 
Irish  people,  with  the  exception  of  five  families, 
were  outlaws.  They  were  murdered  at  will,  like 
dogs,  by  their  English  Catholic  neighbors  in  Ire- 
land, and  there  was  no  law  to  punish  the  murder- 
ers.f 

Yet,  during  all  of  this  unparalleled  reign  of  ter- 
ror, history  fails  to  show  a  single  instance  in  which 

*  The  Parnell  Movement,  by  T.  P.  O'Connor,  p.  117. 
t  Ireland  as  She  Is,  pp.  1 8  to  27  and  citations. 


34  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

the  power  of  the  Catholic  Church  was  ever  exer- 
ted or  suggested,  by  any  pope,  for  the  protection 
of  her  faithful  Irish  children. 

In  the  year  1311,  for  example,  and  as  a  mere 
illustration  of  the  esteem  in  which  Irish  lives  were 
held  by  these  Catholic  princes:  "Wm.  Fritz 
Roger,  being  arraigned  for  the  felonious  slaying 
of  Roger  de  Cantelon,  comes  and  says,  he  could 
not  commit  felony  by  means  of  such  killing,  be- 
cause the  aforesaid  Roger  (de  Cantelon)  was  an 
Irishman  and  not  of  free  blood.  And  the  jury 
upon  their  oath  say  that  the  aforesaid  Roger  was 
an  Iris.hman,  and  therefore  the  said  William  as  far 
as  regards  the  said  felony  is  acquitted. "  * 

But  as  the  aforesaid  Roger  was  found  to  be  an 
Irishman  belonging  to  the  King,  the  unlucky  mur- 
derer was  "recommitted  to  jail,  until  he  shall  find 
pledges  to  pay  five  marksf  to  our  Lord  the  King, 
for  the  value  of  the  aforesaid  Irishman ."J 

I  suppose  this  penalty  was  imposed  under  some 
of  the  English  laws  against  poaching,  but  as  to 
that,  I  am  not  prepared  to  make  a  positive  state- 
ment, and  do  not  deem  the  subject  of  sufficient 

c 

importance  for  investigation,    since  the   fine    was 

*  Davies'  Hist.  Tracts,  p.  78,  et.  seq. ;  Ireland  as  She  Is,  p.  20;  Dolby's 
Hist.,  p.  58. 
t  About  $16.50. 
t  Dolby's  Hist.,  p.  58. 


BOUNTIES    FOR    KILLING    IRISHMEN.  35 

manifestly  not  imposed  for  the  protection  of  the 
lives  of  Irishmen,  but  merely  to  preserve  them  as 
chattels  of  the  King. 

In  1465  an  act  was  passed  (indirectly  but  effec- 
tually) giving  rewards  for  the  killing  of  Irish- 
men, just  as  with  us  rewards  are  given  for  the 
killing  of  coyotes;*  and  the  marriage,  fostering, 
gossip  and  trade  of  English  Catholics  with  Irish 
Catholics,  were  made  penal  offenses  by  Catholic 
parliaments  and  Catholic  kings.*  Under  these 
laws,  murders  innumerable — causeless,  cruel, 
sportive  murders — were  committed  with  impunity. 
Through  their  bishops,  archbishops,  primates  and 
legates  the  popes  must  have  been  fully  advised 
concerning  these  atrocities;  the  English  rulers  and 
people  were  Catholics,  and  as  much  subject  to  the 
popes  as  the. Irish  now  are;  yet  there  was  no  ex- 
communication and  no  threat  of  excommunication, 
by  any  of  the  popes,  against  the  English  for  their 
hellish  practices.  But  assuming  that  all  of  the 
pope's  legitimate  advisers  in  Ireland  were  such 
scoundrels  and  conspirators  with  the  kings,  upon 
whose  favor  their  offices  depended,  yet  the  plea  of 
ignorance  could  not  be  made  for  the  popes. 

O'Neill,  King  of  Ulster,  and  other  Irish  princes, 

*  Ireland  as  She  Is,  p.  21. 
+  Ireland  as  She  Is,  p.  20. 

v 


36  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

fully  represented  those  grievances  to  Pope  John 
XXII.,  who  paid  no  attention  to  them  for  more 
than  twelve  years,  when,  at  last,  he  sent  a  letter 
to  King  Edward  III.,  mildly  advising  that  mon- 
arch to  adopt  a  different  policy  and  to  reform  the 
evils  as  speedily  as  possible.  On  what  ground? 
Solely  on  the  ground  of  expediency;  namely: 
"  lest  it  might  be  too  late  hereafter  to  apply  a 
remedy  when  the  spirit  of  revolt  has  grown 
stronger."" 

If  he  had  been  dealing  with  the  Irish  he  would 
have  sent  a  bull  commanding  them  to  desist  with- 
in a  fixed  time  on  pain  of  excommunication,  but 
the  English,  although  Catholics,  were  not  so  much 
afraid  of  bulls  as  were  the  Irish.  Hence  their 
milder  treatment. 

Hence  the  Vatican,  now  so  anxious  to  shield 
the  enemies  and  plunderers  of  the  Irish  people 
from  peaceful  ostracism  (boycotting),  never  lifted 
the  scepter  of  Church  authority  to  shield  the  Irish 
from  wanton  murder,  .outrage  and  robbery,  when 
those  crimes,  through  centuries,  were  being  per- 
petrated by  the  English  Catholic  children  of  the 
Church,  f 

*  Haverty's  Hist.,  pp.  255-6. 

t  King  John  of  England  was  excommunicated  by  Pope  Innocent  III. ,  in 
the  year  1 208,  while  the  former  was  engaged  in  murdering  the  Irish  and 
devastating  parts  of  their  country ;  but  the  excommunication  had  nothing  to 
do  with  his  persecution  of  the  Irish.  It  grew  out  of  the  Pope's  refusal  to 


FEAR    OF    PAPAL    BULLS.  37 

The  whole  history  of  the  Vatican  shows  that 
ever  since  it  assumed  to  be  the  political  as  well  as 
the  religious  head  of  the  world  (about  the  year 
860),^  its  universal  policy  has  been  to  crush 
the  weak;  to  frighten  the  timid  and  to  conciliate 
the  strong  and  defiant. 

Acting  on  this  policy,  and  finding  the  Irish 
people  afraid  of  papal  wrath,  each  succeeding 
pope  has  traded  for  political  and  other  advantages 
with  England  on  the  strength  of  his  power  to 
coerce  and  subdue  the  Irish  people. 

appoint  the  King's  nominee  as  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  and  the  King's 
refusal  to  allow  Stephen  Langdon,  whom  the  Pope  appointed,  to  act  in 
that  capacity.  The  Pope  having  frightened  the  King  by  inviting  the 
Catholic  powers  of  Europe  to  invade  England,  this  trouble  was  compromised. 
The  King  agreeing  to  accept  Langdon  as  Archbishop  and  to  lay  his  crown 
at  the  feet  of  Cardinal  Pandulf,  the  Pope's  Legate,  who,  after  kicking  it 
contemptuously,  replaced  it  on  the  King's  head.  Henry  VIII.  and  Queen 
Elizabeth,  both  cruel  enemies  of  Ireland,  were  also  excommunicated:  the 
first  by  Pope  Paul  III.,  in  1535,  and  the  latter  by  Pope  Pius  V.,  in  1570; 
but  it  is  needless  to  say  that  these  excommunications  grew  out  of  troubles 
connected  with  the  Protestant  Reformation,  and  had  nothing  to  do  with  the 
persecution  of  Ireland. — J.  G.  M. 

*  Catholic  Dictionary,  Addis  and  Arnold,  Tit.  "Tiara." 


IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 


CHAPTER  V. 

PAPAL    INTERFERENCE    WITH    IRISH    STRUGGLES     FOR 
LIBERTY  AFTER  THE  CONQUEST. 

Many  Irish  historians  are  specially  severe  in 
their  strictures  on  Adrian  IV.,  "the  only  English- 
man who  ever  occupied  the  Papal  throne,"  as  if 
he  were  the  only  pope  who  had  ever  interfered 
with  the  political  liberties  of  the  Irish  people,  but 
the  acts  of  his  successors  are  not  a  whit  less 
iniquitous. 

I  have  already  mentioned  the  bull  of  Pope  Alex- 
ander  III.,  confirming  thegrant  of  Adrian,  and  the 
action  of  his  Legate  at  the  Synod  of  Dublin  in 
1177,  wherein  he  threatened  the  excommunication 
of  such  of  the  Irish  people  as  refused  to  recognize 
the  right  of  King  Henry  to  the  sovereignty  of  Ire- 
land. 

I  have  also  referred  to  the  appointment,  by  the 
popes,  of  English  and  pro-English  bishops,  arch- 
bishops, primates  and  legates  to  rule  over  the 
church  in  Ireland. 

These  prelates  deemed  it  a  part  of  their  duty,  no 
doubt  a  pleasant  part,  to  bless  the  loyal  English 
and  to  curse  the  rebellious  Irish,  in  the  name  of 


O  NEILL  S    REBELLION. 

the  Catholic  Church,  in  all  controversies  between 
the  races. 

But,  so  strong  was  the  love  of  liberty  among  the 
Irish  people  (said  to  have  been  the  growth  of 
thirty  centuries),*  that  the  ban  of  the  local  church 
dignitaries  was  not  sufficient  to  restrain  it ;  and, 
even  in  the  I4th  century,  England  was  obliged  to 
call  for  special  interference  from  the  Vatican. 

In  the  year  1315,  after  the  memorable  Scottish 
victory  on  the  field  of  Bannockburn,  the  princes 
and  popular  leaders  of  the  Irish  people  invited 
Edward  Bruce  (brother  of  Robert  Bruce)  to  enter 
Ireland  and  make  common  cause  with  them  in 
their  struggle  for  liberty.  Accordingly,  on  May 
25th  of  that  year,  Bruce  landed  in  Ireland  with  six 
thousand  veterans.  These  were  at  once  joined 
by  the  Irish  armies  of  Ulster.  Castles  were 
stormed,  cities  were  burned,  "and,"  says  the  his- 
torian, "  in  a  very  short  space  of  time,  no  trace 
of  the  English  remained  in  Ulster  but  the  desola- 
tion of  their  former  dwellings."f 

Felim  O'Connor,  King  of  Connaught  (whose 
"  dignity  and  possessions  had  been  restored  to 
him  by  the  English  "),  deserted  the  English  and 
cast  his  fortunes  with  the  advancing  armies  of 

*O'Halloran'sHist.,p.  19. 
t  Dolby's  Hist.,  p.  58. 


40  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

O'Neill  and  Bruce.  "  The  O'Briens  of  Thomond, 
and  a  great  proportion  of  the  toparchs  of  Mun- 
ster  and  Meath  (then  a  province),  followed  his  ex- 
ample." Their  victorious  armies  swept  over 
Ossory  and  entered  Munster.  Here  they  met  with 
some  reverses.  English  supremacy  in  Ireland 
had  reached  a  crisis,  and,  in  the  supreme  moment, 
England  turned  to  Pope  John  XXII.  "  The 
English  interest  soon  began  to  revive,  and  the 
Pope  lent  his  powerful  assistance  to  restore  its  as- 
cendancy. Sentence  of  excommunication  was 
solemnly  pronounced  against  Bruce  and  all  his 
adherents."* 

Then  followed  the  famous  battle  of  Dundalk, 
which  sealed  the  fate  of  Ireland  for  all  the  suc- 
ceeding centuries.  The  Pope's  decree  presided  as 
a  grim  spectre  over  the  battle.  "  The  Irish  felt 
that  they  fought  under  the  curse  of  the  church  / 
while  the  English  were  roused  by  the  belief  that 
Heaven  was  on  their  side,  and  that  the  blessing 
pronounced  on  their  arms  by  the  Primate,  that  very 
morning,  rendered  them  invincible."f 

"Under  the  curse  of  the  church!  "  Yes,  every 
battle  for  Ireland's  liberty  and  for  natural  justice 
to  her  plundered  people,  has  been  fought  under 

*  Dolby's  Hist.,  p.  59. 
t  Dolby's  Hist.,  p.  60. 


THE    CURSE    OF    THE    CHURCH.  41 

the  curse  of  the  church.  The  gallant  Irish,  who 
never  shrank  from  the  whistling  bullets  or  the  cold 
steel  of  their  armed  foes,  have  always  withered 
and  failed  under  the  blighting  breath  of  Roman 
curses. 

"How  long,  O  Lord!  how  long"  will  the  Irish 
people  stand  divided  between  two  opinions  con- 
cerning the  Pope's  authority  to  keep  them  in 
political  thraldom  ? 

So  complete  and  demoralizing  was  the  English 
victory  at  Dundalk,  and  so  crushing  was  the  ven- 
gence  dealt  out  to  the  surviving  leaders  and  help- 
less people,  that  the  Pope's  personal  services 
were  not  again  required  by  England  in  maintain- 
ing the  subjection  of  Ireland  prior  to  the  refor- 
mation (1534). 

CHAPTER   VI. 

THE    RELIGIOUS    WARS. 

The  religious  rupture  between  England  and 
the  Vatican,  following  the  abolition  of  Papal 
authority  in  English  territory,  led  Pope  Cle- 
ment VIII.  to  foster  the  Irish  rebellion  of 
1598 — not  for  the  purpose  of  freeing  Ireland,  but 
for  the  purpose  of  securing  from  England  better 
terms  for  the  church — and  accordingly  in  the  year 


42  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

following,  he  sent  with  Oviedo,  a  Spaniard  whom 
he  had  appointed  Archbishop  of  Dublin,  a  number 
of  indulgences,  with  power  to  grant  other  indul- 
gences, "  to  those  of  the  Irish  who  fought  against 
the  English  in  defense  of  the  ancient  religion"* 

In  the  year  1643  Father  Scarampi  came  to 
Ireland  as  the  Legate  of  Pope  Urban  VIII., 
bearing  "  a  bull  of  indulgences  to  the  Irish 
Catholics;  and  he  also  brought  with  him  from 
Father  Wadding  (representative  of  the  Catholic 
Confederates  of  Ireland,  at  the  Vatican)  a  sum  of 
$30,000,  with  a  quantity  of  arms  and  ammuni- 
tion.''! 

The  insurrection  of  1641  was  then  in  progress, 
but  this  uprising  was  not  a  struggle  for  Irish 
nationality  nor  for  the  political  emancipation  of 
the  Irish  people.  Its  purpose  was  to  secure  "a 
partial  transfer  of  property,  and  certain  stipula- 
tions in  favor  of  the  Church  of  Rome,'^  the  most 
radical  demand  by  the  insurgents  being'" perfect 
religious  liberty. "|| 

It  was  directed  and^governed  by  f<  The  Supreme 
Council  of  the  Confederate  Catholics  of  Ireland,"§ 

*  Dolby's  Hist.,  p.  238 ;  Haverty's  Hist.,  p.  437. 

t  Haverty's  Hist.,  p.  502. 

$  Haverty's  Hist.,  pp.  480,  508,  517-18. 

||  Haverty's  Hist.,  p.  501. 

§  Haverty's  Hist.,  p.  491. 


MUSKETS  AND  POWDER  FROM  THE  POPE.          43 

and  was  encouraged  not  only  by  the  Pope  but 
also  by  the  Catholic  nations  of  Europe,  especially 
France  and  Spain.^ 

I  dwell  upon  these  details  not  for  the  purpose 
of  belittling  the  movement,  nor  to  discredit  the 
Pope's  services,  but  to  show  that  in  its  true  char- 
acter it  was  a  religious  war  between  Catholic 
Europe  and  Protestant  England,  of  which  Ireland 
was  the  battle  ground,  in  which  the  Pope  was 
equally  interested  with  the  Irish  people,  and  that, 
as  in  the  struggle  of  1598,  the  Irish  armies,  while 
fighting  for  the  grand  and  just  and  holy  principle 
of  religious  liberty  at  home,  were  really  helping 
the  Pope  far  more  than  they  were  being  helped 
by  him.  It  may  be  justly  said  to  have  been 
essentially  his  war,  since,  by  abandoning  him,  all 
the  immunities  claimed  by  the  Irish  would  have 
been  promptly  secured  to  them. 

In  1645  Pope  Innocent  X.,  continuing  the 
policy  of  his  predecessor,  sent  a  nuncio  to  the 
Council  of  the  Confederate  Catholics,  and  also 
sent  a  few  men,  a  little  money,  some  munitions 
and  implements  of  war,  and  one  ship,  to  aid  them 
in  the  struggle  against  religious  persecution  and 
anti-Catholic  penal  laws.f 

*  Haverty's  Hist.,  p.  502-7. 
+  Haverty's  Hist.,  p.  507. 


44  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

These  religious  feuds  necessarily  estranged  the 
English  Government  from  the  Vatican  for  at  least 
two  centuries,  and  apparently  for  a   much   longer 
period.     But  none  may  know  when  or  how  the 
subsequently     discovered      "regular     underhand 
intercourse"*  was  established,  for  it  appears  that, 
even  in  the  midst  of  this  war,  King  Charles  I.  had  an 
emissary  (Lord  Herbert)  in  secret  conference  with 
the    papal   nuncio   (Father    Rinuccini)    with    the 
knowledge,  however,  of  the  Catholic  Council,  but 
unknown   to    the    regular   representatives    of  his 
own  government.     So  that   when  an  attempt  was 
made  to  negotiate  a  peace,  the    Catholic    clergy 
were  "secretly  acquainted  with   the  intention  of 
the    King   to  grant   much    more    than    Ormond 
(Lord  Lieutenant)  stipulated  for."f    It  would  seem 
that  very  little  affecting  Ireland   for  good   or  evil 
was  done  by  the  Vatican  from  the  close  of  this  war 
until  the  beginning  of  the  present  century. 


*  See  p.  28. 

i  Haverty's  Hist.,  pp.  505-6. 


IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE.  45 


CHAPTER   VII. 

A  SOP  TO  CERBERUS. 

In  the  year  1795  a  most  extraordinary,  but 
keen,  far-sighted  and  statesmanlike  change  was 
made  by  the  English  Government  in  the  matter 
of  governing  the  restless,  liberty-craving  Irish. 

The  preceding  generations  of  religious  perse- 
cution had  blended  in  the  minds  of  the  Irish  peo- 
ple the  trials  of  the  Catholic  church  and  its  priest- 
hood with  the  wrongs  of  their  race.*  The  priests 
(a  brave,  noble  and  patriotic  body  of  teachers  and 
comforters),  had  become  their  traditional  advisers 
in  politics  as  well  as  in  religious  matters.  No 
priesthood  in  the  world  was  ever  nearer  to  the 
hearts  of  its  people,  and  none  was  ever  more  de- 
servedly beloved.  Though  severe  in  discipline, 
they  were  kind,  generous  and  attentive  and  in  full 
sympathy  with  the  national  aspirations  of  the  peo- 
ple. Edmund  Burke,  Wm.  Pitt,  Lord  Granville, 
Chas.  J.  Fox  and  other  English  statesmen  resolved 
upon  a  plan,  acceptable  to  the  Vatican,  and  also 
to  the  Irish  bishops  and  representatives,  by  which 
the  great  influence  of  the  Irish  priesthood  might 

*  McCarthy's  Hist,  of  Our  Own  Times,  Vol.  IV,  pp.  190  to  196. 


46  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

be  made,  at  least  negatively,  to  serve  the  purposes 
of  the  English  Government. 

This  plan  was  no  less  than  the  establishment  of 
a  royal  college  for  the  education  of  Irish  Catholic 
priests  at  the  expense  of  the  English  Protestant 
Government. 

Accordingly,  in  that  year  the  Pitt  ministry 
"recommended  the  Irish  Parliament  to  appropri- 
ate a  grant  of  eight  thousand  pounds  ($40,000)  per 
annum,  to  support  a  college  for  the  education  of 
the  Irish  priesthood,'^  and  that  sum  was  there- 
upon appropriated  for  the  maintenance  of  the 
Catholic  Theological  College  of  Maynooth. 

In. the  year  1807  (after  the  Union)  this  grant 
was  increased  by  the  British  Parliament  to  ^13,- 
ooo  ($65,000)  per  annum. 

The  purpose  was  to  educate  for  the  priesthood, 
in  this  college,  the  sons  of  the  common  people  of 
all  parts  of  Ireland;  to  educate  them  out  of  uthe 
Irish  idea"  into  a  sort  of  patriotic  conservatism. 
The  idea  was  not  to  make  them  pro-English,  nor 
even  unpatriotic,  for  that  would  destroy  their  very 
valuable  influence  with  the  people,  but  it  was  to 
make  them  more  Catholic  than  Irish,  eager  to 
struggle  for  Ireland  when  unrestrained,  but  ready 
to  sacrifice  the  cause  of  Ireland  to  the  cause  of  the 

*  Mooney's  Hist.,  p.  1535. 


RELIGIO-POLITICAL   GOVERNMENT.  47 

church,  or   to   church  discipline,  at  any  moment, 
upon  the  call  of  their  religious  superiors. 

The  priests  so  selected  and  educated  were  to  be 
distributed  through  all  the  2,500  parishes  of  Ire- 
land, at  least  one  being  assigned  to  each  parish. 

The  strength  and  elasticity  of  this  new  scheme 
of  religio-political  government  must  be  at  once 
apparent.  This  great  body  of  pro-Irish  priests, 
moving  and  sympathizing  with  the  people,  yet 
bound  to  an  absolute  obedience,  to  a  small  body 
of  pro-English  bishops,  selected  for  their  "unim- 
peachable loyalty"*  to  the  English  Government 
and  all'  controlled  as  absolutely  as  if  they  were 
automatons  by  an  Italian  pontiff,  f  the  latter  (gen- 
erally a  member  of  the  Italian  nobilit^,  or  noblesse 
—a  most  important  fact — as  I  will  presently  show), 
being  in  league  with  the  British  Government 
through  unofficial,  but  all  powerful,  secret  ambas- 
sadors. 

This  was  the  scheme,J  and  from  all  that  we  can 
glean  from  the  pages  of  Irish  history,  the  Vatican 
and  the  government  seem  to  have  been  in  full 
accord  concerning  it. 

Its  immediate  success  was  greatly  hindered  by 

*  See  p.  28. 

t  "In  his  subjects  the  Holy  Father  has  inculcated  the  union  of  all  hearts 
in  the  cause  of  Holy  Church;  *  *  *  *  a  loyal  obedience  of  people  to 
pastors,  and  of  people  and  pastors  to  the  Holy  See."  (The  Pope,  by  Mon- 
signor  Capel,  Domestic  Prelate  of  his  Holiness  Pope  Leo  XIII.,  p.  38. 

t  See  pp.  53-5. 


48  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

the  hostility  or  indifference  of  those  who  succeeded 
to  the  control  of  public  affairs  after  the  increased 
.-grant  of  1807,  but  the  college  endowment  did  not 
cease  to  form  a  strong  bond  of  union  between  the 
government  and  the  Vatican. 

The  strength  of  this  bond  may  be  surmised  from 
the  fact  that  the  Vatican  favored  a  public  statute, 
giving  the  English  Protestant  government  a 
voice  in  the  selection  of  Irish  Catholic  bishops. 
My  authority  for  this  statement  is  that  in  1810 
the  English  Catholics  charged  the  Irish  with 
'  'wavering  in  their  allegiance  to  the  pope"  be- 
cause they  opposed  the  measure,*  and  in  1814  pub- 
liehed  a  rescript  from  Pope  Pius  VII.,  expressly 
recommending  that  concession.  Daniel  O'Connell, 
subsequently  (in  1832),  speaking  of  this  period 
said:  "the  Catholic  laity  were  totally  repugnant  to 
allow  the  crown  any  power  to  nominate  the  Cath- 
olic bishops  of  Ireland. 

We  steadily  opposed  the  Court  of  Rome,  as  well 
as  the  inclination  shown  by  our  own  prelates;  we 
resolutely  resisted  the  wishes  of  our  nobility,  and 
of  so  many  of  our  merchants,  backed  as  they  were 
by  the  almost  universal  voice  of  the  Catholics  of 

England."! 

In  view  of  the  secret  relations  of  the  govern- 

*  Haverty's  Hist.,  p.  748. 
t  Haverty's  Hist.,  p.  761. 


THE    REPEAL    MOVEMENT.  49 

ment  and  the  Vatican,  as  subsequently  discovered, 
this  measure  seems  to  have  been  unimportant, 
since  the  government  already  enjoyed  the  secret 
privilege  of  doing  all  that  the  act  contemplated. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE  REPEAL  MOVEMENT  KILLED  BY  A  RESCRIPT. 

In  the  year  1829,  O'Connell  organized  the  great 
Repeal  movement,  which  has  immortalized  his 
name,  and  which  gave  such  bright  promise  of  ful- 
filling the  last  prayer  of  the  illustrious  Emmet. 
It  grew  with  amazing  rapidity.  Around  the 
leader  gathered  a  grand  galaxy  of  statesmen, 
poets,  and  orators,  whose  words  and  works  cast 
an  imperishable  luster  over  Erin's  race,  and  lent 
a  new  dignity  to  the  character  of  man.  The  peo- 
ple of  Ireland  believed  in  them  and  flocked,  not 
in  thousands,  nor  in  tens  of  thousands  merely, 
but  in  hundreds  of  thousands,  to  their  meetings, 
eager  to  learn  the  gospel  of  political  deliverance 
from  their  lips.  The  tide  of  this  political  move- 
ment rose  and  rolled  with  majestic  power.  Re- 
form after  reform  was  accomplished.  Proposi- 
tion after  proposition  was  made  by  the  English 
Government.  Anything  short  of  a  total  repeal  of 
the  Union  could  be  had  by  the  Irish  for  the  ask- 


5<D  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

ing  ;  and  even  repeal,  with  broader,  better,  hap- 
pier conditions  than  those  that  had  been  lost  by 
the  Union,  seemed  almost  within  reach.  O'er  the 
long-watched  horizon  of  hope  deferred,  the  sun- 
burst of  freedom  was  breaking.  But  lo  !  the  God- 
dess of  Irish  Liberty,  lately  so  joyful,  is  weeping. 
She  faints,  she  reels !  What  evil  fortune  has  be- 
fallen her  ?  Alas  !  the  fangs  of  the  Vatican  ser- 
pent have  been  driven  again  to  her  heart.  The 
learned  and  patriotic  priesthood  of  Ireland  had  be- 
come the  teachers  and  leaders  of  the  people  of  this 
movement,  in  every  parish.  Pope  Gregory  XVI. y 
in  the  year  1843,  ''at  the  urgent  instigation  of  the 
British  Ministry,  through  the  Austrian  Ambassa- 
dor at  Rome,  and  through  the  more  direct  agency 
of  a  Mr.  Petre,  who,  it  appears,  had  acted  on  be- 
half of  England  at  the  Court  of  the  Holy  See  " 
issued  a  rescript  commanding  the  priests  of  Ire- 
land to  refrain  from  attending  the  repeal  meet- 
ings. This  treacherous  and  unexpected  blow  had 
a  stunning  effect  upon  the  movement.  It  silenced 
at  once  thousands  of  its  active  and  trusted  leaders. 
It  was  as  if  all  the  commissioned  officers  of  their 
mighty  army  had  been  captured  at  once  by  the 
enemy.  . 

O'Connell  saw  in  this  rescript  the  doom    of  his 

*  Mooney's  Hist.,  Vol.  II.,  p.  1530. 


KILLED    BY    A    RESCRIPT.  5! 

race  and  country;  the  blasting  of  all  his  cherished 
hopes. 

He  rose  in  the  grandeur  of  his  almost  super- 
human power  to  meet  and  turn  the  blow  of  the 
Holy  See.  He  published  a  letter  to  prove  that 
the  rescript  was  an  illegal  interference  with  the 
civil  liberties  of  the  clergy.*  In  the  agony  of  his 
soul  be  uttered  his  famous  cry:  "As  much  religion 
as  you  please  from  Rome,  but  no  politics." 

He  called  upon  the  clergy  to  stand  by  the 
movement  and  they  did,  at  least  mechanically,  re- 
spond. Mooney  thereupon  says:  "The  clergy 
are  as  much  repealers  as  they  ever  were,  and  the 
current  of  agitation  goes  on  quite  as  steadily  and 
powerfully  as  before  the  document  was  issued. "f 

Alas !  the  events  prove  the  contrary.  During 
the  paralysis,  which  resulted  from  the  blow,  the 
fatal  decay  of  disentegration  had  set  in. 

The  priests  came  forward  as  before,  but  not 
with  the  firm  step  and  earnest  purpose  of  their 
former  enthusiasm.  They  wavered  between  love 
of  country  and  vows  of  obedience.  The  mighty 
movement,  then  in  its  prime, J  which  had  grown 
and  flourished  and  triumphed  for  fifteen  years, 
withered  and  died.  Within  three  years  from  the 

*  Mooney's  Hist.,  pp.  1530-1. 
t  Mooney's  Hist.,  p.  1531, 
i  Haverty's  Hist.,  786-7. 


52  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

date  of  the  rescript  it  had  joined  the  empire  of  the 
eternal  past. 

Poor  O'Connell,  most  faithful  son  of  the  Church, 
truest  friend  of  the  Vatican,  he  must  have  felt 
most  keenly: 

"How  colder  than  the  wind  that  freezes, 

Founts  that  but  now  in  sunshine  played, 
Is  the  congealing  pang  which  seizes 
The  trusting  bosom  when  betrayed." 

He  died  at  Genoa  of  a  broken  heart  on  May 
1 5th,  1847,  and  strangely  willed  his  heart*  to  the 
destroyers  of  his  life  and  his  country,  f 

THE    PRICE    OF    THE    RESCRIPT. 

What  was  the  consideration  which  moved  the 
Vatican  to  issue  the  rescript  ? 

As  it  was  the  result  of  secret  negotiations,  the 
details  of  which  have  never  been  directly  published 
or  made  known,  it  is  impossible  to  say,  authorita- 
tively, what  was  its  price  ;  but  certain  it  is  that 
shortly  before  and  shortly  after  its  issuance  the 
British  Government  made  legislative  concessions 
to  the  Church  wThich  were  most  pleasing  to  the 
Vatican. 

The  first  was  the  repeal  of  the  obnoxious  stat- 

*  The  Parnell  Movement,  p.  69. 

t  It  is  but  just  to  his  memory  to  state  that  he  was  then  suffering  from 
softening  of  the  brain,  superinduced  by  the  mental  agony  involved  in 
witnessing  the  dying  struggles  of  his  cherished  movement.  Young  Ireland,  p. 
531;  the  Parnell  Movement,  p.  13. 


PRICE    OF    THE    RESCRIPT.  53 

ute  of  Mortmain,  in  1842.  The  repeal  of  this  law 
was  a  just  and  proper  measure,  and  was  generally 
supposed  to  have  been  forced  from  the  government 
by  the  Repeal  Association,  but,  in  the  light  of 
events  following  so  closely  after  it,  there  may  be 
some  force  in  the  suggestion  that  it  was  in  part 
the  residt  of  the  repeal  agitation  and  in  part  the 
price  of  its  destruction. 

The  other  concession  was  an  act  of  Parliament 
passed  in  1845,  increasing  the  grant  to  Maynooth 
College  from  ,£13,000  to  .£26,000  ($130,000)  per 
annum,  and  making  an  additional  appropriation  of 
,£30,000  ($150,000)  for  the  enlargement  of  its 
buildings. 

Speaking  of  this  grant,  Mr.  Thomas  Power 
O'Connor  says  :  "  Sir  Robert  Peel,  by  the  con- 
cession of  a  larger  grant  to  Maynooth,  still  further 
disintegrated  the  forces  of  O'Connell  by  bringing 
pressure  on  the  Vatican,  and,  through  the  Vatican, 
on  some  of  the  bishops ;  and  so  O'Connell's 
power  began  gradually  to  melt  away." 

On  the  passage  of  this  act,  Richard  Lalor  Shiel, 
Catholic  member  of  Parliament  for  Dungarvan, 
who  had  discredited  his  patriotism  by  accept- 
ing an  appointment  to  office  under  the 

*  Parnell  Movement,  p.  15. 


54  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

English  Government,  *  made  a  most  remark- 
able speech,  openly  avowing,  reviewing,  and 
enforcing  the  purposes  of  the  original  College 
grant,  of  which  it  may  not  be  uninteresting  to 
quote  a  few  passages  here  :  "  You  are  taking  a 
step  in  the  right  direction,"  he  said.  "  You  are 
advancing  in  a  career  of  which  you  have  left  the 
starting  post  far  behind,  and  of  which  the  goal 
perhaps  is  not  far  distant.  You  must  not  take  the 
Catholic  clergy  into  your  pay,  but  you  can  take  the 
Catholic  Church  under  your  care.  *  *  *  May- 
nooth  was  founded  jn  a  great  measure  at  the  sug- 
gestion of  the  apostle  of  order,  the  great  Edmund 
Burke.  Let  him  be  assured  that  he  has  made 
.great  progress  in  the  art  of  governing  Ireland,  by 
whom  the  works  of  Edmund  Burke  are  perused 
with  admiration.  That  sagacious  man  saw  that  it 
was  not  to  the  interest  of  Protestant  England  .that 
the  priesthood  of  Catholic  Ireland  should  be  edu- 
cated in  France  ;  he  thought  that  evils  could  arise 
from  a  French  and  Irish  ecclesiastical  fraterniza- 
tion ;  he  did  not  wish  that  French  principles 
should  be  imported  into  every  Irish  parish,  and 
he  denounced  the  introduction  of  a  Gallo-Hiber- 
nian  establishment  into  Ireland.  Edmund  Burke 
was  of  opinion  that  the  Irish  Catholic  priesthood 
should  be  educated  by  the  state  and  for  the  state. 

*  Parnell  Movement,  p.  76. 


PRIESTS    TO    KEEP    DOWN    SEDITION.  55 

Give  the  Catholic  priest  and  the  Irish  Protest- 
ant proprietor  a  common  interest  in  maintaining 
the  institutions  of  their  country  and  their  reconcil- 
iation will  be  immediate  and  complete.  Indeed 
the  only  danger  to  be  apprehended  is,  that  their 
alliance  may  become  too  unqualified  and  too  com- 
pact. *  *  *  *  Great  ability  will  be  allured  into 
Maynooth — gold  for  genius  has  a  magnetic  power. 

*  *  Locate  in  every  parish  an  educated  Cath- 
olic priest,  whose  mind  has  undergone  the  process 
of  literary  refinement,  and  you  will  accomplish 
much  in  the  way  of  national  amelioration.  *  *  * 
Even  if  the  sum  to  be  granted  were  five  times 
what  the  minister  recommends  you  to  concede, 
there  is  so  much  true  economy  in  the  results  of 
wise  legislation  that  your  very  love  of  saving 
should  induce  you  to  act  with  liberality  to  Ireland. 
Are  not  lectures  at  Maynooth  cheaper  than  State 
prosecutions  ?  Are  not  professors  less  costly  than 
crown  solicitors  ?  Is  not  a  large  standing  army, 
and  a  great  constabulary  force,  more  expensive  than 
the  moral  police  with  which,  by  the  priesthood  of 
Ireland,  you  can  be  thriftily  and  efficaciously  sup- 
plied?"* 

Why  did  Shiel  suppose  that  the  priests  educated 
at  Maynooth  would  render  the  same  service  for 

*  Shiel's  Speeches,  by  MacNevin,  p.  338,  et  seq. 


56  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

England  that  had  previously  been  rendered  by 
state  prosecutors,  crown  solicitors,  the  standing 
army,  and  the  constabulary  force? 

Why  did  the  English  Government  believe  the 
promise  and  make  the  grant  ? 

There  can  be  but  one  answer.  The  English 
Government,  then  in  secret  diplomatic  correspond- 
ence with  the  Vatican,^  had  satisfactory  assurances 
that  none  but  pro-English  bishops  and  archbish- 
ops would  be  appointed  for  Ireland,  and  that,  by  ed- 
ucating her  priesthood  into  a  sufficiently  rigid  polit- 
ical subserviency  to  their  religious  superiors,  they 
might  readily  be  made  the  unconscious  instru- 
ments of  English  tyranny,  and  might  ultimately 
aid  in  eliminating  the  spirit  of  nationality  from  the 
Irjsh  character. 

These,  at  least,  were  the  hopes  and  expecta- 
tions of  the  English  Government,  and,  if  they  have 
in  anything  failed,  the  failure  has  certainly  not 
been  the  fault  of  the  Vatican  or  its  Anglo- Irish 
bishops,  as  we  shall  see. 

*  See  p.  28. 


IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE.  57 


CHAPTER    IX. 

YOUNG    IRELAND    MOVEMENT    KILLED    BY    BISHOPS 
AND    PRIESTS. 

When  the  repeal  movement  passed  away,  the 
spirit  of  Irish  nationality  was  represented  by  the 
Young  Ireland  Party — "the  men  of '48." 

Of  this  party  the  illustrious  Alexander  M.  Sul- 
livan says  :  "They  were  pre-eminently  the  party  of 
religious  tolerance.  The  leading  idea,  in  what 
may  be  called  their  home  policy,  was  to  break  down 
the  antagonism  between  Catholics  and  Protestants 
in  Ireland."^ 

The  following  lines,  from  the  pen  of  the  immor- 
tal Thomas  Davis,  well  illustrates  the  noble  and 
truly  fraternal  spirit  of  the  movement  : 

'  'What  matter  that  at  different  shrines 
We  pray  unto  one  God  ? 
What  matter  that  at  different  times 
Our  fathers  won  this  sod  ? 
In  fortune  and  in  name  were  bound 
By  stronger  links  than  steel  ; 
And  neither  can  be  safe  or  sound 
But  in  the  other's  weal. 

*         *         •*         *         *• 
And  oh,  it  were  a  gallant  deed 
To  show,  before  mankind, 
How  every  race  and  every  creed 
Might  be  by  love  combined — 
Might  be  combined ,  yet  not  forget 
The  fountains  whence  they  rose, 
As  filled  by  many  a  rivulet 
The  stately  Shannon  flows." 

*  New  Ireland,  p.  98. 


58  IRELAND     AND    THE    POPE. 

Equally  grand,  liberal  and  inspiring1  was  his 
famous  "Orange  and  Green,"  addressed  to  his 
fellow  Protestants  of  Ulster,  in  which  these  lines 
occur  : 

"  Freedom  fled  us  ; 

Knaves  misled  us  ; 
Under  the  feet  of  the  foeman  we  lay  ; 

But  in  their  spite 

The  Irish  unite 
For  Orange  and  Green  will  carry  the  day." 

In  like  strain  wrote  also  those  glorious  daughters 
of  Erin:  «  Eva,"*  "  Mary,"f  and  "  Speranza."J 
In  one  of  the  last  poems  of  "  Speranza,"  pub- 
lished in  the  Nation,  occurs  the  following  : 

"  We  are  blind,  not  discerning  the  promise, 

'Tis  the  sword  of  the  spirit  that  kills  ; 
Give  us  light  and  the  fetters  fall  from  us, 
For  the  strong  soul  is  free  when  it  wills." 

Did  these  lines  have  reference  to  the  subject 
which  I  am  now  discussing  ? 

In  vain,  in  vain  !  all,  all  in  vain  !  Again,  as  at 
Dundalk,  the  champions  of  Irish  liberty  "fought 
under  the  curse  of  the  Church." 

The  Catholic  clergy  set  themselves  invincbily 
against  the  movement. 

Quoting   again   from    Sullivan,    who    was    an 

*  Eva  Mary  Kelly,  afterwards  Mrs.  Kevin  O'Dougherty. 
t  Ellen  Downing.     She  died  of  grief,  on  being  discarded  by  Joe  Brennan, 
her  patriot  lover. 

I  Jane  Frances  Eglee,  daughter  of  a  Protestant   minister;    now    Lady 
Wilde  and  mother  of  Oscar  Wilde. 


HOSTILITY   OF   THE    CLERGY.  59 

active  participant,  and,  at  the  same  time,  an 
earnest  Catholic,  and  even  an  extreme  Ultramon- 
tane (being  one  of  the  chief  organizers  of  the  "Irish 
Brigade  "  for  the  Pope's  army  in  1860),^  we  find  : 
"At  this  time,  in  1848,  the  power  of  the  Catholic 
priests  was  unbroken — was  stronger  than  ever. 
The  famine  scenes,  in  which  their  love  for  the 
people  was  attested  by  heroism  and  self  sacrifice 
such  as  the  world  had  never  seen  surpassed,  had 
given  them  an  influence  Which  none  could  ques- 
tion or  withstand.  Their  antagonism  was  fatal  to 
the  movement — more  surely  and  infallibly  fatal  to 
it  than  all  the  power  of  the  British  Crown. "f 

The  famine-years  undoubtedly  called  forth  the 
noblest  traits  of  all  true  characters.  All  honor  to 
the  Catholic  priests  for  having  done  their  priestly 
duty  so  nobly  in  that  awful  period,  but  it  should 
be  remembered  that  many  of  their  Protestant 
brethren  of  the  cloth  were  also  self-sacrificing. 
Of  this  the  following  instance,  given  by  Mr. 
Sullivan,  is  a  striking  example: 

"  The  Protestant  curate  of  my  native  parish,  in 
1847,  was  the  Rev.  Alexander  Ben  Hallowell, 

*  New  Ireland,  pp.  277  to  286. 

t  New  Ireland,  p.  119;  John  Mitchell  says:  "About  the  year  1850 
Ireland  became  thoroughly  subjugated,  without  almost  a  hope  of  escape. 
Everything  was  fitted  to  the  hand  of  her  enemy,  and  that  enemy  made  most 
unrelenting  use  of  the  advantage.  The  Catholic  bishops  counselled  obedi- 
ence and  submission."  Hist.  Ireland,  Vol.  II,  p.  252. 


6O  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

subsequently  rector  of  Clonakilty,  and  now  I  be^ 
lieve  residing  somewhere  in  Lancashire.  There 
were  comparatively  few  of  his  own  flock  in  a  way 
to  suffer  from  the  famine,  but  he  dared  death 
daily  in  his  efforts  to  save  the  perishing  creatures 
around  him.  A  poor  hunchback,  named  Richard 
O'Brien,  lay  dying  of  the  plague  in  a  deserted 
hovel  at  a  place  called  '  The  Custom  Gap.'  Mr, 
Hallowell  passing  by  heard  the  moans  and  went 
in.  A  shocking  sight  met  his  view.  On  some 
rotten  straw,  in  a  dark  corner,  lay  poor  '  Dick  ' 
naked,  except  a  few  rags  across  his  body.  Mr, 
Hallowell  rushed  to  the  door  and  saw  a  young 
friend  on  the  road.  '  Run,  run  with  this  shilling 
and  buy  me  some  wine,'  he  cried.  Then  he  re- 
entered  the  hovel,  stripped  off  his  own  clothes, 
and  with  his  own  hands  put  upon  the  plague- 
stricken  hunchback  the  flannel  vest  and  drawers 
and  shirt  of  which  he  had  just  divested  himself. 
/  know  this  to  be  true.  I  was  the  '  young  friend ' 
who  ivent  for  and  brought  the  wine.v* 

Noble  priests  !  noble  ministers  !  Surely  none 
of  such  men  will  be  cast  out  of  Heaven  for  mak- 
ing a  mistake  in  the  selection  of  his  creed  ! 

But  why  did  this  devoted  Irish  Catholic  priest- 
hood destroy  the  "Young  Ireland''  movement? 

*  New  Ireland,  p.  91. 


THE    ALLEGED    REASON.  6 1 

1 1  is  said  in  their  defense  that  "they  regarded  the 
Young  Irelanders  with  suspicion."  That:  "They 
fancied  they  saw  in  this  movement  too  much  that 
was  akin  to  the  work  of  the  continental  revolu- 
tionists, and,  greatly  as  they  disliked  the  domina- 
tion of  England,  they  would  prefer  it  a  thousand 
times  to  such  'liberty'  as  the  carbonari  would  pro- 
claim."* 

If  I  could  believe  that  the  Irish  Catholic  clergy 
acted  in  good  faith  on  their  own  judgment,  even 
on  this  ridiculously  mistaken  opinion  of  the 
"Young  Irelanders/'  I  would  not  feel  privileged 
to  say  one  word  in  denunciation  of  their  conduct; 
for,  as  Irishmen,  each  had  an  unquestionable 
right,  according  to  his  honest  judgment,  to  favor 
or  oppose  any  movement  affecting  the  political 
liberty  of  his  country. 

But  I  cannot  believe  that  they  opposed  the 
movement  for  any  such  reason  nor  upon  their  in- 
dependent judgment. 

They  knew  that  the  movement  was  led  by  great 
and  gifted  statesmen,  who  fully  realized  their  re- 
sponsibility, and  who,  in  public  and  in  private, f" 
opposed  the  methods  of  the  carbonari  and  of  the 
continental  revolutionists.  They  knew  also  that 


*  New  Ireland,  p.   1 19. 

t  See  letter  of  Gavan  Duffy  to  Wm.   Smith  O'Brien,  from  Newgate 
Prison.     New  Ireland,  p.  117. 


62  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

neither  the  French  Revolution  then  in  progress, 
nor  even  the  "carnival  of  fire  and  blood"  which 
reigned  in  France  at  the  close  of  the  last  century, 
could  add  one  terror  to  the  sufferings  which  the 
Irish  people  had  endured  and  were  enduring. 

The  artificial  famine  produced  by  English  mis- 
government  and  landlord  avarice  was  still  upon 
them,  and  held  them  in  its  torturing  grasp. 

On  the  combination  rack  of  landlord-bred 
famine  and  famine-bred  fever,  the  Irish  people,  in 
tens  of  thousands,  were  dying  in  agony,  homeless 
and  shelterless,  in  sight  of  the  cabins  which  their 
own  hands  or  the  hands  of  their  ancestors  had 
built,  but  from  which  inhuman  landlordism  had 
evicted  them,  in  their  hour  of  direst  affliction. 
They  were  hungering  to  death  in  sight  of  grana- 
ries filled  with  fruits  which  the  God-given  soil  of 
Ireland  had  yielded  to  the  inspiration  of  their 
own  toil,  but  which,  under  the  malign  power  of 
English  laws,  they  had  been  compelled  to  sur- 
render to  idle  landlords. 

These  landlords  had,  and  have,  no  purpose  in 
living,  save  that  of  collecting  toll  from  their  in- 
dustrious fellow-men;  giving  absolutely  nothing  in 
return  except  a  superfluous  assent  to  their  victims' 
God-given  privilege  of  using  the  natural  resources 
of  their  native  land. 


THE    FAMINE    ARTIFICIAL.  63 

Justin  McCarthy,  an  eye  witness,  speaking  of 
this  period  (1847  to  I^57)»  says:  "Evictions 
took  place  by  the  hundred,  by  the  thousand,  by 
the  ten  thousand — evictions  as  much  for  grazier's 
purposes  as  for  non-payment  of  rent,  which  in 
those  evil  days  of  famine  and  failure  they  could 
not  pay.  Winter  or  summer,  day  or  night,  fair  or 
foul  weather,  the  tenants  were  ejected.  Sick  or 
well,  bed-ridden  or  dying,  the  tenants — men,  women 
or  children — were  turned  out.  They  might  go  to 
America  if  they  could ;  they  might  -  die  on  the 
roadside,  if  so  it  pleased  them.  They  were  out 
of  the  hut,  and  the  hut  was  unroofed  that  they 
might  not  seek  its  shelter  again,  and  that  was  all 
the  landlord  cared  about."1* 

These  evictors  and  their  allies,  bear  in  mind, 
are  the  hell-hounds  whom  the  Holy  Father  (?)  is 
now  so  eager  to  shield  from  peaceful  ostracism 
and  legal  embarrassments  at  the  hands  of  their 
victims. 

There  was  not  even  a  scarcity  of  food  in  Ire- 
land during  the  years  of  famine,  but  only  a  failure 
of  the  immediate  crops  on  which  the  plundered 
tenantry  depended. *j* 

*  Ireland  since  the  Union,  p.  141. 

f  "The  harvest  of  1847  was  also  very  abundant  in  Ireland,  and  it  was 
one  of  the  deadliest  years  of  famine.  The  English  offered  thanksgivings  to 
God  for  the  Irish  harvests,  and  then  devoured  them,"  Mitchell's  Hist.,  Vol. 
II,  p.  252. 


64  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

Mrs.  Nicholson,  another  eye  witness,  in  her 
soul-harrowing  work,  " Lights  and  Shades  of  Ire- 
land/' says  :  "  What  shall  be  said  of  the  pitiful 
landlords,  who  were  still  drinking  their  wine, 
while  pouring  their  doleful  complaints  into  gov- 
ernment's ears,  that  no  rents  were  paid.  *  *  *  * 
But  these  afflicted  landlords  were  exporting  to 
the  continent  vast  quantities  of  grain,  which  their 
poor  starving  tenants  had  labored  to  produce. 
They  were  not  allowed  to  eat  a  morsel  of  their 
food,  but  must  buy  it  from  others  or  starve."' 

And  again.  "Next  to  the  absurdity  of  Cork 
and  Limerick  exporting  cargoes  of  Irish  grain  for 
sale,  and  at  the  same  time  receiving  cargoes  of 
American  grain  to  be  given  away  at  the  cost  of 
the  English  people,  may  be  ranked  the  folly,  if  it 
may  not  properly  be  called  by  some  worse  name, 
of  seeing  hundreds  dying  for  want  of  food,  at  the 
same  time  permitting  the  conversion  of  as  much 
grain  as  would  feed  the  whole  of  those  dying  of 
starvation,  and  many  more,  into  a  fiery  liquid 
which  *  *  *  *  never  saved  a  single  life  or  im- 
proved a  single  character."f 

Was  this  abject  poverty  of  the  Irish  tenantry 
due  to  idleness  or  improvidence  ?  No.  In  years 


*  PP.  30-1. 

t  Lights  and  Shades,  p.  130. 


IRISH    SELF-SACRIFICE.  65 

of  plenty  as  well  as  in  years  of  scarcity  the  tenant 
is  robbed  of  all  the  fruits  of  his  labor,  except  that 
in  good  years  he  is  left  a  slave's  portion,  enough 
to  keep  body  and  soul  together. 

Industry,  providence  and  self-sacrifice  are  and 
were  the  general  characteristics  of  the  Irish  peas- 
antry. One  illustration,  among  thousands  that  I 
might  cite,  must  here  suffice.  It  is  also  from  the 
pen  of  Mrs.  Nicholson.  She  had  been  riding  on 
a  car  on  which  a  tattered  and  repulsive  looking 
man  was  also  seated.  On  alighting  from  the  car 
this  man  fell  prostrate  in  the  passage.  She  found 
that  his  weakness  "was  exhaustion,  occasioned  by 
hunger,"  and  thus  proceeds:  "When  he  could 
speak  in  a  whisper,  he  begged  Mrs.  Arthur  to 
take  a  few  sovereigns  which  he  had  sewed  in  his 
ragged  coat,  and  send  them  to  his  wife  and  chil- 
dren, who  were  suffering  for  food.  He  had  been 
at  work  in  England,  and,  knowing  the  dreadful 
state  his  family  were  in  at  home,  had  saved  a  few 
sovereigns,  not  willing  to  break  one,  and  endea- 
vored to  reach  home  on  a  few  shillings  he  had,  and 
being  so  weak  for  want  of  food  he  occasionally 
'rode  a  few  miles  when  it  rained  and  had  not  eaten 
once  in  two  days."* 

It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  poor  wife  and  children 


*  Lights  and  Shades,  p.  119. 


66  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

obtained  the  money  without  the  knowledge  of  the 
landlord's  factor,  as,  otherwise,  it  must  surely  have 
gone  to  buy  wine  for  the  landlord  instead  of  food 
for  them. 

This  spirit  of  self-sacrifice  was  not  confined  to 
mothers  and  fathers  :  "  It  is  expected  that  mothers 
will  suffer  and  even  die  for  their  famishing  little 
ones,  if  needful ;  but  to  see  children  suffer  for  one 
another,  was  magnanimity  above  all.  Two  house- 
less, starving  little  orphan  boys,"  says  Mrs.  Nich- 
olson, "one  about  nine  and  the  other  five,  called 
at  the  door  of  a  rich  widow  of  my  acquaintance 
and  asked  for  food.  The  woman  had  consumed 
all  her  bread  at  breakfast  but  a  small  piece,  and 
giving  this  to  the  eldest  she  said :  You  must 
divide  this  with  your  little  brother.  I  have  no 
more."  She  then  tells  us  that  the  lady  "looked 
after  them  unperceived"  and  saw  the  elder  boy 
give  the  whole  piece  to  the  other,  and  turn  away 
to  stifle  the  pangs  of  his  own  hunger  while  his 
weaker  companion  devoured  it.* 

And  these,  bear  in  mind  incidentally,  are  the 
people  from  whom  the  present  Pope,  by  the  spir- 
itual terror  and  coercion  of  his  rescript,  seeks  to 
take  away  the  only  effective  peaceful  weapons  of 
self-defense  that  they  have  ever  had  against  the 

*  Lights  and  Shades,  p.  120. 


IRELAND  S    CONDITION. 


67 


murderous  and  thrice  damnable  institution  of  land- 
lordism. 

Everywhere  throughout  the  Island  these  scenes 
appeared^  shocking  the  sight,  freezing  the  souls 
and  haunting  the  memories  of  beholders,  and  all 
produced  directly  by  the  two  institutions  against 
which  the  gallant  Young  Irelanders  were  contend- 
ing. 

With  the  white  lips,  the  glassy  eyes  and  the 
bony  fingers  of  gaunt  visaged  famine  thus  every- 
where pleading  for  succor  or  death,  what  had  Ire- 
land to  fear  from  "the  methods  of  the  continental 
revolutionists?"  Absolutely  nothing. 

Why  then  did  the  priesthood  oppose  the  only 
movement  that  had  for  its  object  the  removal  of 
the  causes,  or  any  of  the  causes,  of  this  artificial 
famine  and  this  systematic  plunder  of  the  indus- 
trious by  the  idle  ? 

My  answer  is,  that  they  must  have  been  acting 
under  orders  from  the  Pope  and  the  bishops. 

John  Mitchell  says:  "The  Catholic  bishops 
counseled  obedience  and  submission"  to  the  English 
Government,*  and  we  know  that  the  bishops,  besides 
being  appointed  for  their  "  unimpeachable  loyalty," 
are  directed  largely  by  secret  orders  from  the  Vat- 
ican, which  they  are  sworn  to  keep  secret  even 

*  Mitchell's  Hist.,  Vol.  II,  p.  252. 


68  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

from  the  priests  of  their  jurisdictions.  In  such 
cases  the  orders  of  the  Pope  are  issued  to  the 
priests  and  people  as  if  they  originated  with  the 
bishops. 

Assuming  that,  if  the  Pope  did  directly  bring 
his  authority  to  bear  on  the  Irish  bishops,  ^  and 
through  them  on  the  priests  and  people  to  de- 
stroy the  Young  Ireland  movement,  his  action 
must  have  been  induced  by  some  consideration 
moving  from  the  English  Government,  I  immedi- 
ately looked  for  acts  of  Parliament  relating  to  the 
church  and  the  Vatican. 

Strangely  enough,  I   find  that  in  the  year  1848 

—the  pivotal  year  of  the  Young  Ireland  struggle 

— a  political  privilege  which  had   previously  been 

denied  for  over  three  hundred  years,  was  accorded 

to  the  Pope  by  an  act  of  Parliament,  f 

By  this  act  the  Government  was  authorized  to 
re-open  diplomatic  relations  with  the  Pope  and  to 
receive,  in  regal  state,  a  papal  ambassador  at  the 
Court  of  St.  James. 

To  those  not  familiar  with  the  history  of  the 
Vatican,  since  it  has  fallen  under  the  absolute  do- 
minion of  what  has  been  most  aptly  called  "  the 
Italian  Ring,"  this  may  seem  a  small  price  to  en- 

*  Parnell's  Movement,  p.  15. 

f  Stats,  ii  and  12,  Viet.  (1848),  Chap.  108,  p.  686. 


THE    VATICAN    AGAIN.  69 

gage  the  head  of  the  Catholic  Church  in  assisting 
to  perpetuate  the  bondage  of  six  millions  of  faith- 
ful Catholics,*  but  to  those  who  have  read  and 
watched  the  political  history  and  movements  of 
that  ring,  the  sufficiency  of  the  consideration  will 
be  quite  apparent. 

Those  who  have  observed  the  painful  eager- 
ness with  which  the  cardinals  and  popes — "  the 
princes"  f  and  "supreme  rulers  of  the  world"  J— 
have  bent  "  the  pregnant  hinges  of  their  knees/* 
and  extended  their  hands,  for  small  political  favors, 
from  the  temporal  rulers  of  European  nations,  will 
realize  the  tremendous  importance  attached  by 
the  Vatican  to  this  recognition  at  the  English 
Court.  || 

This  act  constitutes  the  missing  link  and  com- 
pletes the  chain  of  causation.  It  makes  plain  the 
fact,  and  the  reason,  that  the  Vatican  required  the 
Irish  priesthood  to  oppose  the  Young  Ireland 
movement.  The  English  Government  had  pur- 
chased its  support  and  the  quid  pro  quo  must  be 
given. 

*  The  sad  remnant  of  the  eight  millions  of  two  years  before;  Hist,  of  Our 
Own  Times,  Vol.  I,  p.  324. 

t  "The  rank  of  Cardinal,  in  its  temporal  aspect,  is  equivalent  to  that  of 
a  reigning  prince.  On  their  seals  they  have  their  own  arms,  with  the  red 
hat  as  crest."  Catholic  Dictionary,  Tit.  ''Cardinal,"  p.  120. 

t  Catholic  Dictionary-,  Tit.  "Tiara,"  p.  796. 

||  For  the  enlightenment  of  those  to  whom  this  knowledge  may  not  be 
common,  I  have  inserted  a  chapter  on  Vatican  politics. 


7O  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

What  did  it  matter,  that  Ireland  was  on  the  rack 
of  a  law-imposed  famine  ?*  What  did  it  matter 
that  two  millions  of  her  people  were  dyingf  for 
want  of  the  bread  which  they  had  produced  from 
mother  earth,  but  of  which  they  had  been  robbed 
by  landlordism — the  cruel  creature  of  English 
law  ?  What  did  it  matter  that  extermination  by 
famine  was  the  declared  purpose  of  the  govern- 
ment press, J  and  of  government  representatives,  || 
with  respect  to  the  Irish  question  ?  As  a  com- 
pensation for  all  this,  it  was  surely  sufficient 
that  the  church  (which  meant,  and  still  means,  the 
Italian  Ring  in  the  church)  had  made  a  great  ad- 
vance. The  political  ambition  of  three  centuries 
had  been  attained  !  Glory  hallelujah  !  the  Pope's 
legate  was  again  permitted  to  strut  in  the  Court  of 
St.  James ! 

Joy  reigned  in  Rome  !  Gloom  spread  over  the 
camp  of  the  Irish  patriots  ! 

"  Their  tents  were  all  silent,  their  banners  alone, 
Their  lances  unlifted,  their  trumpets  unblown." 

*  Irish  famines  are  not  NATURAL  famines,  they  are  ARTIFICIAL  famines ; 
they  are  not  made  by  the  Lord,  but  by  the  landlord  ;  they  are  not  famines 
of  food — there  is  always  plenty  of  that  in  Ireland — but  famines  of  money 
with  which  to  buy 'food  from  landlords,  who  have  taken,  the  fruits  of  the  soil 
as  rent  for  land,  to  which  they  have  generally  no  moral  title."  Ireland  of 
To-day,  p.  184. 

t  Hist,  of  Our  Own  Times,  Vol.  I.,  p.  324. 

t  "In  a  few  years,"  said  the  London  Times,  exultingly,  "a  Celtic  Irish- 
man will  be  as  rare  in  Connemara  as  is  the  red  Indian  on  the  slopes  of  the 
Manhattan."  Ireland  Since  the  Union,  p.  144. 

||  Ireland  of  To-day,  pp.  46  and  191. 


THE    CHURCH    AGAINST    THE    FENIANS.  J I 

Right  or  wrong,  for  good  or  evil,  another  "  Irish 
movement"  lay  dead  at  the  feet  of  the  triumphant 
Vatican ! 

The  principal  leaders  of  the  movement  were 
sentenced  to  be  "  hanged,  disemboweled  and  quar- 
tered," but  this  barbarous  sentence  was  commuted 
by  Act  of  Parliament  to  transportation  for  life.* 
Of  the  others,  numbers  were  convicted  and  hun- 
dreds fled  to  exile,  and  Ireland  suffered  not  only 
the  sacrifice  of  many  of  "her  best  and  noblest 
sons/'  but  also  "  in  the  terrible  re-action,  prostra- 
tion, terrorism  and  disorganization  that  ensued,  "f 


CHAPTER   X. 

THE    FENIAN    MOVEMENT    OPPOSED    BY  THE    CHURCH. 

* 

Passing  over  the  Tenant  League  agitation,  the 
next  serious  effort  for  the  liberation  of  Ireland 
was  the  Fenian  movement,  organized  by  a  few 
daring  spirits  in  May,  1858. 

The  purpose  was  to  organize  and  drill  an  Irish 
army;  to  have  them  supplied  with  munitions  of 
war  by  similar  organizations  of  Irishmen  in  Amer- 
ica ;  to  rise  at  a  given  signal ;  storm  the  English 
strongholds  and  proclaim  Ireland  free.J  It  was 

*  New  Ireland,  p.  125. 
f  New  Ireland,  p.  125. 
t  New  Ireland,  p.  264,  et.  seq. 


72  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

too  loosely  organized,  for  a  movement  so  serious, 
and  was  in  many  respects  impracticable  and  reck- 
less, but  it  was  full  of  genuine  patriotism,  and  love 
of  a  country  whose  condition  was  so  wretched  and 
desperate  that  it  could  not  be  seriously  injured  by 
their  adventure. 

Bishop  Moriarty,  of  Kerry,  within  an  hour  after 
learning  of  the  movement,*  commenced  a  bitter 
warfare  against  it.  The  Catholic  clergy  were  soon 
denouncing  it  throughout  Ireland  as  a  "secret 
society"  unauthorized  by  the  church. 

Over  this  issue  '*  the  Fenian  movement,  on  its 
very  threshold,  was  plunged  into  a  bitter  war  with 
the  ecclesiastical  authorities  of  the  Catholic 
Church.  'The  priest  has  no  right  to  interfere  in  or 
dictate  our  politics/  said  the  Fenian  leaders  ;  'ours 
is  a  political  movement ;  they  must  not  question 
us  or  impede  us. '  '  You  cannot  be  admitted  to 
the  sacrament  until  you  give  up  and  repent  of  illi- 
cit oaths,'  responded  the  Catholic  priests,  'and  if 
you  contumaciously  continue  in  membership  of  an 
oath-bound  secret  society,  you  are  liable  to  excom- 
munication." 

"  Do  you  hear  this  ?  We  are  cursed  by  the 
church  for  loving  our  country  !"  exclaimed  the 
Fenians;"  and  thus  the  quarrel  continued  for  five 

*  New  Ireland,  p,  264. 


MORIARTY  S    REGRET.  73 

years. *  The  movement  grew,  and  attained  con- 
siderable proportions,  but  in  face  of  such  opposi- 
tion it  could  not  accomplish  much. 

In  1867  three  of  its  promoters — Allen,  O'Brien 
and  Larkin — were  hanged.  These  men  died 
with  the  prayer:  "  God  Save  Ireland/'  on  their 
lips;  while  their  gentle  Christian  antagonist,  Bish- 
op Moriarty,  of  "  unimpeachable  loyalty"f  re- 
gretted that  "hell  was  not  hot  enough  nor  eter- 
nity long  enough  to  punish  such  miscreants. "£ 


CHAPTER   XI. 

HOME  RULE  MOVEMENT  OPPOSED  BY  THE  CHURCH, 

On  the  i Qth  day  of  May,  1870,  the  present 
Home  Rule  Movement  was  instituted.  It  was  a 
purely  peaceable  movement  to  secure,  by  constitu- 
tional agitation,  "the  establishment  of  an  Irish 
parliament,  with  full  control  over  domestic  af- 
fairs."||  At  this  meeting  were  "  men  who  never 
before  met  in  politics  save  as  irreconcilable  foes. 
The  Orangeman  and  the  Ultramontane,  the 
staunch  Conservative  and  the  sturdy  Liberal,  the 
National  Repealer  and  the  Imperial  Unionist,  the 

*  New  Ireland,  p.  312. 
t  See  page  28. 
t  Parnell  movement,  p.  227. 
||  New  Ireland,  p.  450. 


74  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

Fenian  Sympathizer  and  the  devoted  loyalist,  sat 
in  free  and  friendly  counsel."1 

Even  at  this  heterogeneous  meeting  the  resolu- 
tion in  favor  of  Home  Rule  was  adopted  unani- 
mously. 

But  the  Catholic  Bishop  of  Derry  was  more 
loyal  to  English  rule  than  all  of  these,  so  he  op- 
posed the  movement,  and  in  January,  1871,  he 
publicly  denounced  it. 

Like  Cardinal  Cullen  he  "  was  always  on  the 
side  of  the  Government  as  against  all  struggles  of 
Nationalists,  on  the  principle  that  England  could 
do  more  for  the  interests  of  the  church  than  any 
National  Party. "f 

The  British  Government  was  at  that  time  hold- 
ing out  a  proposition  to  establish  a  Catholic  Uni- 
versity in  Ireland,  for  the  purpose  of  drawing  the 
Catholic  clergy  away  from  the  popular  move- 
ment, and  it  had  "a  powerful  effect  with  some  of 
the  Catholic  bishops  and  clergy.  "J  Earlyin  1872  the 
Home  Rulers  noticed  that  important  newspapers 
under  the  control  and  influence  of  the  Catholic 
clergy  "  began  to  draw  off  from  the  movement 
and  to  say  that  the  demand  for  Home  Rule  was, 


*  New  Ireland,  p.  444. 

t  Parnell  Movement,  p.  140. 

J  New  Ireland,  p.  456. 


THE    CLERICAL    PARTY.  75 

no  doubt,    very  right  and  just,  but  it  was  inoppor- 
tune."* 

Did  the  finger  of  Rome  direct  this  change  of 
heart  on  the  part  of  the  Irish  clergy  ?  I  cannot 
prove  it  by  direct  evidence,  but  viewing  and  judg- 
ing the  circumstances  in  the  light  of  experiences 
prior  and  subsequent  to  that  time,  I  may  fairly 
say  that  it  so  appears  to  a  moral  certainty  and 
beyond  all  reasonable  doubt. 

The  movement  grew  and  prospered,  but  the 
opposition  of  the  clergy  continued.  On  the  6th 
of  August,  1875,  at  a  banquet  given  in  honor  of 
the  centenary  of  the  birth  of  Daniel  O'Connell,  a 
number  of  Catholic  clergymen,  native  and  foreign, 
were  present,  and  an  unseemly  discussion  arose 
between  the  clergymen  and  the  Home  Rulers  on 
the  question  of  Home  Rule,  which  resulted  in  much 
dissension,  and,  immediately  afterwards,  Mr. 
McSwiney,  Lord  Mayor  of  Dublin,  organized,  or 
tried  to  organize,  a  sort  of  clerical  counter  move- 
ment to  draw  away  the  strength  of  the  Home 
Rule  Party,  calling  it  the  "Faith  and  Fatherland 
Party;' 

On  the  1 5th  of  August,  1879,  the  price  of  this 
clerical  opposition  to  the  Home  Rule  movement 
was  duly  paid  by  Parliament,  by  the  abolition  of 

*  New  Ireland,  p.  456. 


76  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

the  Queen's  University  in  Ireland  and  the  estate 
lishment  in  its  stead  of  a  new  University  for 
man  Catholics. 


CHAPTER    XII. 

THE    LAND    LEAGUE    OPPOSED    BY    THE    POPE. 

In  September,  1879,  the  Irish  National  Land 
League  was  formed,  not  to  replace,  but  to  supple^ 
ment,  the  Home  Rule  movement 

Another  artificial  famine  was  approaching,  and 
the  real  purpose  of  the  League  was  to  intercept 
landlord  extortion  and  to  check  evictions  ;  thus 
preventing  the  re-enactment  of  the  horrible  fam- 
ine scenes  of  1847-8. 

The  lives  of  many  thousands  of  Irish  families 
were  saved,  and  this  immediate  success  in  giving 
shelter  and  protection  to  the  masses  of  the  people 
from  the  one  ever  dreaded  enemy — landlordism- 
rallied  the  people  in  hundreds  of  thousands  to  the 
standard  of  Parnell  and  Davitt. 

In  the  midst  of  this  struggle  to  keep  the  un- 
fortunate tenantry  under  the  shelter  of  their  own 
cabins  during  the  famine  ;  while  subscriptions  to 
the  famine  fund,  for  the  relief  of  the  starving 
Irish,  were  slowly  arriving  from  the  generous 
hearted  of  Canada,  Australia,  the  United  States, 


ALL    FOR    A    CARDINAL  S    HAT.  77 

and  even  from  far-off  I  ndia ;  and  while  factors 
and  bailiffs  and  soldiers  and  constables  and  crow- 
bar brigades  were  evicting  the  unfortunates  and 
leveling  their  huts,  ancfcas  far  and  fast  as  the  pas- 
sive resistance  of  the  unarmed  people  would  per- 
mit, re-enacting  the  horrors  of  1847-8 — even  in 
this  awful  crisis — the  Roman  Catholic  Archbishop 
of  Dublin  (McCabe),  in  full  cry  with  the  blood- 
hounds of  landlordism,  had  a  pastoral  letter  pub- 
lished in  the  churches  of  his  arch-diocese  condemn- 
ing the  Land  League  agitation. 

On  the  loth  of  October,  1880,  and  again  on  the 
30th  of  October,  1881,  the  same  Archbishop  re- 
newed his  thunders  against  those  who  by  passive 
resistance  defended  the  lives  and  homes  of  the 
people,  in  new,  and  truly  "loyal,"  pastoral  letters. 
In  March,  1881,  a  Ladies'  Land  League  was 
formed  for  the  most  humane  and  Christian  purpose 
of  "raising  funds,  inquiring  into  cases  of  eviction, 
and  affording  relief  to  evicted  tenants.  As  soon 
as  this  new  organization  came  into  existence  it 
was  assailed"  by  this  red-cap-hunting  hound  of  the 
Vatican — Archbishop  McCabe — "as  at  once  im- 
modest and  wicked."^  As  a  reward  for  these  ser- 
vices, and  as  an  acknowledgment  that  he  was 
sufficiently  anti-Irish  and  cold-blooded  to  associate 

*  Ireland  since  the  Union,  p.  274. 


78  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

in  close  relationship  with  the  Italian  Ring,  he  was 
created  a  cardinal*  on  the  27th  of  March,  1882. 

I  have  spoken  specially  of  the  conduct  of  Arch- 
bishop McCabe  because  hi$  elevation  to  the  posi- 
tion of  a  "prince  of  the  church"  is  pretty  conclu- 
sive evidence  that  he,  at  least,  in  all  that  he  did, 
was  acting  under  the  direct  orders  of  the  Vatican. 

A  strong  circumstance  tending  to  confirm  this 
view  is,  that  the  Vatican,  while  still  pretending  to 
be  neutral  in  the  affairs  of  Ireland,  was  secretly 
interfering  with  the  raising  of  funds  in  America, 
even  to  relieve  the  famine  sufferers  whose  support 
had  been  undertaken  by  the  Leagues. 

In  1882,  Rev.  Edward  McGlynn,  the  most  elo- 
quent and  popular  Catholic  priest  in  the  world, 
was  delivering  lectures  in  New  York  for  the  bene- 
fit of  the  Leagues.  Archbishop  McCloskey  re- 
ceived peremptory  orders  from  the  Vatican  re- 
quiring him  to  compel  Dr.  McGlynn  to  desist,  on 
pain  of  suspension  from  his  priestly  office. 

The  Dr.,  bowing  to  authority,  discontinued  his 
lectures. 

In  1883,  Dr.  McGlynn  was  requested  to  deliver 
a  special  lecture  for  the  benefit  of  the  then  starv- 
ing people  of  Western  Ireland.  A  telegram  was 
immediately  sent  to  Archbishop  McCloskey  from 

*  He  was  the  second  Irish  cardinal  ever  appointed ;  Cullen,  another  anti- 
Irish  Irishman,  being  the  first. 


DAVITT    SPURNED    AT    ROME.  79 

the  Vatican,  signed  by  Cardinal  Simeoni,  or- 
dering him  to  "suspend  this  priest  McGlynn,  for 
preaching  in  favor  of  the  Irish  revolution." 

These  documents  came  to  light  in  December, 
1886,  in  consequence  of  the  trouble  between  Dr. 
McGlynn  and  Archbishop  Corrigan  at  that  time. 
Otherwise  the  circumstances  would  never  have 
been  made  public.  How  many  hundred  similar 
blows  may  have  been  dealt  against  the  Irish  cause 
in  secret  and  in  darkness  by  these  Italian  allies 
of  England  may  never  be  known. 

Another  circumstance  pregnant  of  meaning  is, 
that,  about  the  time  of  which  I  am  speaking,  it 
was  reported  that  Sir  George  Errington,  a  "Castle 
Cawtholic,"  and  emissary  of  England,  was  com- 
missioned for  some  secret  intrigue  at  the  Vatican. 

Michael  Davitt  went  to  Rome,  as  the  accredited 
representative  of  the  Irish  people,  to  lay  their 
cause  before  the  Pope. 

He  was  spurned  and  boycotted,  as  if  he  was  a 
leper,  by  the  "  distinguished  Catholics "  then 
visiting  at  Rome — even  the  guests  at  the  hotel 
where  he  stopped  left  the  dining-room  in  which  he 
was  seated,  and  threatened  to  leave  the  hotel 
unless  he  was  required  to  leave.  He  was  refused 
an  audience  with  the  Pope,  on  the  ground  that  his 


8O  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

reception  might  give  the  impression  that  the  Holy 
Father  was  taking  sides  on  the  Irish  question. 

A  few  weeks  afterwards,  the  Prince  of  Wales, 
apparently  for  no  other  purpose  than  to  expose 
the  double  face  of  the  Vatican,  had  a  suggestion 
conveyed  to  the  Holy  Office  that  he  thought  of 
paying  a  visit  to  Rome,  and  inquiring  if  he  might 
expect  to  be  accorded  an  audience  by  His  Holi- 
ness. 

Immediately,  without  any  fear  of  misconstruc- 
tion, the  arms  of  the  Holy  Father  were  opened 
and  extended  to  receive  the  representative  of  the 
English  side  of  the  Irish  question.  He  did  not 
go,  but  sent  his  "Castle  Cawtholic"  flunky,  Erring- 
ton,  who  was  accorded  more  than  one  audience* 
and  on  his  ex  parte  representations  secured  at 
least  one  important  favor  of  which  I  shall  presently 
speak. 

On  the  2Oth  of  January,  1883,  Pope  Leo  XIII. 
sent  a  rescript  to  the  Irish  clergy  commanding 
them  to  use  their  power  to  suppress  certain  classes 
of  societies,  the  description  being  broad  enough  to 
include  the  Irish  political  leagues. 

The  effect  of  this  rescript  was  not  to  destroy,  as 
designed,  but  to  divide  and  weaken  the  movement; 
but  it  certainly  was  not  the  Pope's  fault  if  anything 

*  No  representative  of  landlordism  was  ever  denied  an  audience  by  the 
Pope. 


ERRINGTON'S  BLUNDER.  81 

remained  of  the  Irish  movement  after  his  poisoned 
draught  had  been  administered. 

Not  satisfied  with  this  the  Pope,  on  the  nth  of 
May  of  the  same  year,  issued  a  more  powerful  and 
mandatory  rescript,  condemning  and  forbidding 
disaffection  to  the  government,  and  forbidding 
subscriptions  to  the  Parnell  testimonial  fund,  a 
fund  then  being  raised  by  Irishmen  and  their 
sympathizers  to  reimburse  Mr.  Parnell  for  losses 
suffered  by  him  through  the  agitation.  .This  was 
the  papal  favor  secretly  granted  at  the  secret  re- 
quest of  Errington,  made  under  circumstances 
which  I  have  already  detailed. 

Again,  upon  the  death  of  Cardinal  McCabe  in 
February,  1885,  this  same  Errington,  still  "acting 
as  the  gutter-agent  of  the  English  Government,'* 
secretly  secured  from  the  Pope  a  rescript  or  order 
commanding  the  bishops  of  Ireland  to  observe  the 
wishes  of  England  in  nominating  a  successor  to 
the  vacant  archbishopric. 

Before  this  rescript  had  reached  Ireland,  Er- 
rington, either  in  the  intoxication  of  joy  produced 
by  the  success  of  his  mission,  or  under  the  influ- 
ence of  anotner  kind  of  intoxication,  quite  common 
to  his  class  of  reveling  Christians,  boasted  of  the 
promise  which  he  had  secured  from  the  Pope. 

This  news,   telegraphed  to    Ireland  before   the 


82  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

rescript  had  been  received,  called  forth  such  a 
storm  of  indignation  that  the  Pope,  in  fear  of  los- 
ing his  Irish  "Peter's  Pence,"  recalled  it. 

In  April,  1885,  Bishop  Nulty  of  Meath,  a  brave 
and  noble  patriot  prelate,  and  others  of  his  stripe, 
having  publicly  favored  the  Land  League  and 
Home  Rule  movements,  were  summoned  to  Rome 
and  rebuked  by  the  Pope  for  their  disloyalty. 

On  the  Qth  of  May  following,  Bishop  Nulty 
published  a  pastoral  letter  warning  the  Vatican 
that  if  it  persisted  in  its  unjust  and  oppressive 
course  toward  the  Irish  people  they  too  would 
some  day  manifest  the  spirit  displayed  by  other 
.nationalities  and  break  away  from  the  spiritual,  as 
well  as  the  temporal  dominion  of  Rome.  This 
pastoral  is  said  to  have  "caused  great  displeas- 
ure" It  did  in  fact  cause  great  consternation, 
and  produced  the  remarkable  effect  of  keeping  the 
Pope's  hand  away  from  the  throat  of  Irish  lib- 
erty for  three  full  years. 


IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE.  83 

CHAPTER    XIII. 

THE    LAST    RESCRIPT. 

On  the  20th  of  April,  1888,  the  Pope,  at  the 
secret  and  ex  parte  request  of  the  Duke  of  Nor- 
folk, issued  another  rescript*  condemning  and  for- 
bidding the  use  of  two  of  the  weapons  of  self- 
defense  invented  and  successfully  used  by  the  suf- 
fering people  in  their  terrible  and  unequal  strug- 
gle against  the  life-destroying  oppression  of  land- 
lordism, namely  :  the  plan  of  campaign  and  the 
boycott. 

This  condemnation  is  put  upon  the  grounds:  (a) 
that  the  plan  of  campaign  is  "  unjust  and  inequita- 
ble to  the  landlords;  and  (6)  that  the  boycott  is  ((a 
new  form  of  persecution  and  proscription,  al- 
together foreign  to  natural  justice  and  to  Chris- 
tian chanty." 

Leaving  out  of  account  for  the  present  the  un- 
denied  and  undeniable  fact  that  the  Irish  land- 
lords, under  the  protection  of  English  laws,  and 
English  or  pro-English  judges,  constables,  bailiffs 
and  soldiers,  have  been  able,  not  only  to  hold  their 
own,  but  to  rob  the  whole  Irish  people  of  all  the 
produce  of  their  labor  above  that  bare  subsistence 

*  See  Appendix  C. 


84  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

which  is  the  portion  of  chattel  slaves — denying 
even  that  to  millions,  whom  they  have  willfully 
condemned  to  death  by  the  slow  tortures  of 
famine — and  to  drive  (as  they  still  do)  a  million 
a  decade  into  exile,  let  us  consider  what  the 
plan  of  campaign  and  boycott  are  and  compare 
them  with  the  methods  of  persecution,  plunder, 
and  extermination  which  they  were  designed  to 
resist. 


CHAPTER   XIV. 

PLAN  OF  CAMPAIGN  AND  BOYCOTT  VS.  RACK  RENT, 
EVICTION,  AND  RULES  OF  ESTATE. 

The  land  question  is  at  the  very  root,  and  is  the 
root,  of  all  the  Irish  troubles.  The  Irish  people 
must  live  on  the  land,  and  from  the  land  of  Ire- 
land, if  they  are  permitted  to  live  at  all.  There 
are  now  about  five  millions  of  people  living  on  the 
Island,  and  the  entire  land  on  which  and  from 
which  they  must  live  is  the  exclusive  private  prop- 
erty of  about  seventeen  thousand  landlords,  * 
great  and  small,  who  have  the  almost  absolute 
power  to  determine  upon  what  conditions  and  for 
what  tribute  the  other  millions  shall  be  permitted 
to  live.  Having  this  power,  the  landlords,  for 

*  MullhalPs  Dictionary  of  Statistics,  p.  266. 


RACK-RENTING.  85 

centuries,  kept  the  people  in  a  constant  nightmare, 
and  turned  the  country  into  a  vast  panorama  of 
horrors. 

They  fixed  rents  according  to  the  measure  of 
their  own  merciless  avarice,  often  making  it  higher 
than  the  gross  yield  of  the  land,  and,  in  the  lan- 
guage of  Dean  Swift,  "  sqiteezed  it  out  of  the  very 
blood  and  vitals  and  clothes  and  dwellings  of  the 
tenants,  who  live  worse  than  English  beggars" 
Whatever  of  the  rent  could  not  be  extorted  by  the 
terrors  of  threatened  eviction  was  generously  al- 
lowed to  accumulate  in  "arrearages,"  to  pay 
which  unusually  good  crops,  and  contributions  of 
American  relatives,  were  confiscated. 

This  is  what,  in  Irelend,  is  called  "rack-rent- 
ing." It  may  be  denominated  the  "rack"  of 
landlordism,  but  it  is  not  without  its  flesh-rending 
"  spiked  roller  "(to  use  terms  certainly  familiar  to 
the  Holy  Office  of  the  Inquisition)  nor  its  "fire 
wheel"  and  "torturing  stake." 

The  tenant  in  arrears  was  always  subjected  to 
summary  eviction,  and  even  if  his  rent  were  not 
in  arrears  he  was  subject,  on  short  notice,  to  be 
similarly  evicted,  in  order  that  the  owner  might 
consolidate  farms,  or  turn  the  land  into  a  park,  or 
sheep  pasture,  or  in  order  to  gratify  any  whim,  re- 


86  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

venge,  or  other  desire,  on  the  part  of  the  land- 
lord. 

"Our  Irish  landlords,"  says  Father  Lavelle, 
"  all  Christians,  many  of  my  own  creed*  act  the 
landlord  as  if  there  were  no  God  ;  oppressing  the 
poor  man  and  the  weak  of  heart  to  put  him  to 

death."f 

A  parliamentary  committee  appointed  to  in- 
quire into  the  condition  of  Irish  tenantry — evicted 
in  order  to  promote  the  consolidation  of  farms, 
not  for  non-payment  of  rent — reported  that  :  "It 
would  be  impossible  for  language  to  convey  an 
idea  of  the  distress  to  which  they  have  been  re- 
duced. *  *  *  They  are  obliged  to  resort  to 
theft  and  all  manner  of  vice  and  iniquity  to  pro- 
cure subsistence,  and  a  vast  number  of  them  per- 
ish of  want,  after  having  undergone  misery  and 
suffering  such  as  no  language  can  describe  and  of 
which  no  conception  can  be  formed  without  act- 
ually beholding  it."l 

But  the  scope  of  this  book  will  not  permit  the 
presentation  of  many  examples  of  the  murderous 
persecution  by  which  landlordism  has  turned  the 
heaven-favored  land  of  Erin  into  the  dark  and 

*  Has  the  Pope  ever  excommunicated,  or  threatened  to  excommunicate, 
any  of  these  landlords  for  persecuting  their  fellow  Catholics  ?     Not  one. 
t  The  Irish  Landlord,  p.  196. 
J  The  Irish  Landlord,  p.  248. 


RULES    OF    THE    ESTATE.  87 

bloody  arena  which  it  has  certainly  been.  I  have 
before  me  Father  Lavelle's  great  and  fascinating 
work  on  "  The  Irish  Landlord,"  containing  five 
hundred  and  forty  pages  filled  with  terrible  but 
well  attested  examples  of  landlord  atrocity,  but 
those  which  I  have,  here  and  elsewhere  in  this 
volume  given,  are  quite  sufficient  to  show  how 
unnatural  is  the  power,  and  how  terrible  is  the 
threat,  of  eviction.  They  show  the  sort  of  knife 
which  the  seventeen  thousand  landlords,  in  good 
and  bad  seasons,  hold,  by  legal  process,  to  the 
throats  of  their  five  million  Irish  tenant  slaves,*  to 
enforce  their  extortionate  demands. 

Well  has  Mr.  Gladstone  called  the  writ  of 
eviction  a  "death  warrant?" 

But  the  landlord's  persecution  does  not  end 
with  eviction.  After  eviction  the  unfortunate 
tenant  must  face  the  terrible  "  Rules  of  the 
Estate." 

These  rules  forbid  any  tenant  in  the  district 
giving  food  or  shelter  to  any  member  of  an  evic- 
ted family,  on  pain  of  being  in  like  manner  evicted 
by  his  or  her  landlord.  But  this  is  not  all,  the 
landlords  of  other  districts  have  equally  stringent 

*  Pope  Leo  complimented  the  Emperor  of  Brazil  on  having  freed  his 
slaves,  in  the  very  week  during  which  he  ordered  the  Irish  back  into  their 
chains. 


88  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

rules  against  sheltering  or  harboring  the  doomed 
wretches. 

Another  example  from  Father  Lavelle  will  illus- 
trate the  working  of  these  rules.  Speaking  of  a 
very  ordinary  eviction  he  says:  "  A  certain  land- 
lord in  County  Galway  got  a  cheap  decree  at 
quarter  sessions  against  a  tenant  on  his  property. 
This  was  early  in  October ;  October  and  Novem- 
ber passed  over  and  a  gleam  of  hope  began  to 
enter  the  poor  man's  soul  that,  at  least,  he  would 
be  permitted  to  pass  the  Christmas  holidays  in  his 
old  home.  December  was  fast  running  out;  the 
sun  of  Christmas  eve  had  actually  risen,  and  with 
it  the  poor  man  and  his  wife  and  family,  when 
horror  of  horrors !  what  does  he  see  approaching 
his  cabin  door,  followed  by  a  posse  comitatus  of 
the  Crow-bar  Brigade,  but  the  Sheriff,  surrounded 
by  a  detachment  of  the  constabulary  force.  The 
family  were  flung  out  like  vermin,  and  the  work 
of  demolition  occupied  but  a  few  minutes.  The 
evicted  family  passed  that  and  the  subsequent 
Christmas  night  with  no  other  covering  but  that 
of  the  wide  canopy  of  Heaven,  as  strict  prohibi- 
tions had  been  issued  to  all  the  other  tenants  to 
harbor  them  on  pain  of  similar  treatment."* 

Bishop  Nulty   of   Meath,    one   of  God's    true 

*  The  Irish  Landlord,  pp.  271-2. 


EVICTION    HORRORS.  89 

noblemen,  speaking  of  "a  cruel  and  inhuman 
eviction"  witnessed  by  himself,  and  in  which 
tl  seven  hundred  human  beings  were  driven  from 
their  homes  in  one  day  and  set  adrift  on  the 
world,"  although  "  there  was  not  a  single  shilling 
of  rent  due  on  the  estate  at  the  time  except  by 
one  man/'  After  describing  the  horrors  of  the 
eviction  itself,  he  proceeds  :  "The  horrid  scenes 
I  then  witnessed  I  must  remember  all  my  life 
long.  The  wailing  of  women — the  screams,  the 
terror,  the  consternation  of  children — the  speech- 
less agony  of  honest  industrious  men — wrung 
tears  of  grief  from  all  who  saw  them. 
The  heavy  rains  that  usually  attend  the  autumnal 
equinoxes  descended  in  cold,  copious  torrents 
throughout  the  night,  and  at  once  revealed  to  the 
houseless  sufferers  the  awful  realities  of  their  con- 
dition. I  visited  them  next  morning  and  rode 
from  place  to  place  administering  to  them  all  the 
comfort  and  consolation  I  could.  The  appearance 
of  men,  women  and  children,  as  they  emerged 
from  the  ruins  of  their  former  homes — saturated 
with  rain,  blackened  and  besmeared  with  soot, 
shivering  in  every  member  from  cold  and  mis- 
ery— presented  positively  the  most  appalling  spec- 
tacle I  ever  looked  at.  The  landed  proprietors 
in  a  circle  all  around — and  for  many  miles  in 


9<D  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

every  direction — warned  their  tenantry,  with 
threats  of  their  direst  vengeance  against  the  hu- 
manity of  extending  to  any  of  them  the  hospital- 
ity of  a  single  night's  shelter.  Many  of  these 
poor  people  were  unable  to  emigrate  with  their 
families,  while  at  home  the  hand  of  every  man 
was  thus  raised  against  them.  They  were  driven 
from  the  land  on  which  Providence  had  placed 
them,  and,  in  the  state  of  society  surrounding 
them,  every  other  walk  of  life  was  rigidly  closed 
against  them.  What  was  the  result  ?  After  bat- 
tling in  vain  with  privation  and  pestilence,  they  at 
last  graduated  from  the  workhouse  to  the  tomb, 
and  in  a  little  more  than  three  years,  nearly  a 
fourth  of  them  lay  quietly  in  their  graves. 'M 

This  is  landlordism,  in  all  its  cold  and  cruel 
infamy  !  Standing  between  God's  children  and 
the  means  which  he  has  provided  freely  for  their 
support  !f  Blasting  their  happiness  and  crushing 
out  their  lives.  Down  with  it !  Eternal  Justice, 
let  it,  and  its  supporters,  find : 

"  No  shelter  from  the  withering  curse 
Of  God  and  human  kind." 

But  what  of  the  plan  of  campaign-  and  the 
boycott — the  weapons  of  passive  resistance 

*  The  Parnell  Movement,  p.  173. 

t  It  is  estimated  that  Ireland,  if  free  from  landlordism,  is  capable  of  sup- 
porting comfortably  from  three  to  four  times  its  present  population. 


PLAN    OF    CAMPAIGN.  9 1 

with  which  the  tenants,  "contrary  to  natural  jus- 
tice and  Christian  charity"  according  to  the  Holy 
Father,  seek  to  defend  their  lives  and  their  fami- 
lies against  this  man-eating  monster  of  landlord- 
ism ? 

The  plan  of  campaign  is  a  modification  of  the 
"No-Rent  Manifesto"  of  October  i8th,  1881, 
and  is  simply  this  :  The  tenants  of  a  district  de- 
termine to  act  together  in  withholding  from  their 
landlords  enough  of  their  crops,  or  of  the  price 
thereof,  to  provide  food  for  their  families  and  seed 
for  their  land  for  the  approaching  season,  and  to 
give  the  rest  up  to  the  landlord  as  toll  for  the 
privilege  of  using  the  God-given  land.  The  ten- 
ants, or  their  representatives,  agree  upon  the 
percentage  of  the  fixed  rents  that  can  be  paid  by 
them,  and  then,  all  who  desire  to  join  in  the  plan, 
pay  the  amount  of  rent  agreed  upon  to  a  secret 
agent  (from  whom  it  would  be  taken  by  legal  pro- 
cess by  the  landlords  if  his  identity  were  known), 
subject  to  future  agreement  between  the  landlord 
and  tenants.  If  the  landlord  agrees  to  accept  the 
rent  thus  deposited,  it  is  paid  over  to  him  ;  other- 
wise it  is  returned  to  the  tenant.  The  tenants, 
thus  acting  under  the  plan,  assist  each  other  in  the 
defense  of  eviction  suits,  and,  in  defiance  of  the 
"  Rules  of  Estate/'  give  each  other  shelter  when 
evicted. 


92  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

But  this  would  be  ineffectual  without  some 
means  of  preventing  their  more  unscrupulous 
fellow  wretches  from  underbidding  them  and  tak- 
ing their  little  holdings  at  the  old  rack-rent  rates, 

Here  the  boycott  comes  into  play,  and  it  is 
simply  this  :  Any  person  who  rents  the  holding 
of  an  evicted  tenant  is  socially,  commercially, 
politically,  and  industrially  ostracised  by  all  of  the 
other  tenants  (practically  the  whole  population)  in 
the  district. 

They  will  not  associate  with  him,  nor  speak  to 
him,  nor  buy  from  him,  nor  sell  to  him,  nor  work 
for  him,  nor  hire  him.  They  will  not  handle  his 
grain,  nor  work  where  it  is  handled. 

No  member  of  any  of  the  Leagues  will  work  on 
any  steamer  which  carries  cattle  raised  by  him 
to  the  English  market.  There  is  in  it  no  invasion 
of  legal  right,  and  no  aggression. 

11  Nothing  is  done  to  the  obnoxious  individual, 
but  nothing  will  be  doney^r  him."^ 

This  principle,  as  far  as  possible,  is  applied  to 
obnoxious  landlords  as  well  as  to  underbidding 
tenants. 

Thus  the  boycott  and  the  plan  of  campaign 
are  the  complement  and  supplement  of  each  other,, 

*  Ireland  Since  the  Union,  p.  251. 


DISARMING   THE   VICTIMS.  93 

and  together  they  constitute  a  tolerably  effective 
moral  weapon  of  self-defense. 

With  the  weapons  which  I  have  thus  described 
the  contest  between  landlordism  and  tenantry  has 
of  late  years  been  fought. 

This  is  the  contest  in  which  Pope  Leo  has 
deemed  it  his  duty  to  interfere  seven  times,  at 
least,  within  the  past  six  years,  and  always  on  the 
side  of  the  strong  against  the  weak. 

He  now  deems  it  his  duty  to  disarm  the  un- 
fortunate tenantry  of  even  these  moral  weapons, 
and  leave  them  naked  and  helpless  to  the  cruel 
fangs  of  their  worse  than  tiger  enemies. 

Vicar  of  Christ !     Well, — so  be  it. 

These  condemned  methods  have  saved  thous- 
ands of  the  Irish  people  from  starvation,  and 
millions  from  hunger  and  privation,  during  the 
past  six  years. 

They  have  saved  to  the  people  about  fifteen 
millions  of  dollars  per  annum,  and  have,  by  this 
immediate  benefit,  consolidated  the  whole  people 
of  Ireland  in  the  mighty  political  struggle  for 
Home  Rule  and  Land  Reform. 

The  landlords,  the  Tories,  and  the  Pope  well 
know  that,  if  this  advantage  could  be  taken 
away,  the  political  movement  would  disin- 
tegrate with  it ;  and  so,  by  an  agreement 


94  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

confessedly  made  with  the  Duke  of  Norfolk, 
the  Pope  threatens  the  Irish  tenants  with  the 
terrors  of  an  eternity  in  hell,  after  death,  unless 
they  will  consent  to  return  again  to  the  hell  on 
earth  from  which  the  Land  and  National  Leagues 
have  partially  relieved  them. 

Before  the  condemned  methods  were  adopted, 
from  one  million  to  five  million  dollars  were  an- 
nually sent  to  the  people  of  Ireland  by  relatives 
and  sympathizers  in  America,  but  the  contribu- 
tions served  only  to  increase  the  rapacity  and  ex- 
tortion of  the  landlords,  by  increasing  the  tenants' 
ability  to  pay — the  only  standard  by  which  the 
maximum  of  Irish  rents  is  measured.  Any  man, 
not  an  idiot,  who  speaks  seriously  of  freedom  of 
contract  between  landlords  and  tenants  in  Ireland, 
betrays  a  contemptible  hypocrisy  that  not  even 
the  mask  of  the  Gorgon  would  conceal. 

If,  by  any  possibility,  the  Pope  may  have  been 
ignorant  of  the  true  nature  of  the  controversy  in 
which  he  has  been  so  persistently  interfering,  his 
ignorance  is  due  to  his  constant  refusal  to  hear 
the  Irish  side  of  it,  and  is  not  a  whit  less  excusa- 
ble than  malice  prepense. 

The  other  hypocritical  defense  so  often  urged, 
that  the  Pope  does  not  oppose  the  Irish  political 
movement  but  only  the  methods  by  which  it  is  sup- 


MOVEMENTS  AND  METHODS.          95 

ported,  is  puerile  ^nd  childish.  The  methods 
constitute  the  force  and  measure  of  the  move- 
ment. 

They  alone  make  the  political  movement  possi- 
ble by  giving  the  people  an  immediate  incentive 
to  combined  effort,  and  a  breathing  spell  from  the 
tortures  of  landlordism,  during  which  they  may 
work  and  think. 

Suppose  that  Germany  were  to  commence  an 
invasion  of  France  (eldest  daughter  of  the  church) 
and  that  the  Pope  should  forbid  the  French  peo- 
ple to  use  either  powder  or  improved  implements 
of  war  in  resisting  the  invasion,  and  should  then, 
with  customary  hypocrisy,  say  to  the  French  peo- 
ple: "My  dear  children,  I  would  not  for  the  world 
interfere  with  your  ambition  to  preserve  the  politi- 
cal freedom  of  your  country.  I  object  only  to 
your  methods" 

What  would  the  French  people  say  to  this  ? 

They  would  burn  him  in  effigy,  as  they  did  his 
predecessor,  Pius  VI.,  in  1791,  when  he  interfered, 
on  behalf  of  the  nobility,  with  their  political  as- 
pirations. 

The  ultramontanes  will  hardly  deny  the  anal- 
ogy between  the  present  case  of  Ireland  and  the 
supposed  case  of  France  on  the  ground  that 
France  has  a  nationality  to  preserve  while  Ireland 


96  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

has  not,  since  Ireland  had  a  nationality  for  thirty 
centuries  and  would  probably  have  had  it  to  this 
time  were  it  not  for  the  treachery  of  Pope  Leo's 
predecessor — Adrian. 

This  Roman  "explanation  of  the  rescript"  is 
so  supremely  ridiculous,  that,  if  it  had  been  given 
by  a  negro  minstrel  it  would  have  produced  roars 
of  laughter  and  would  have  ranked  as  "a  good 
hit." 


CHAPTER    XV. 

POPE    LEO'S    BOYCOTT    ON    DR.    M'GLYNN. 

In  the  Pope's  rescript  we  are  favored  with  the 
information  that  boycotting  is  "a  new  form  of  per- 
secution and  proscription/'  In  truth,  however, 
it  is  but  a  mild  form  of  excommunication,  suggest- 
£d  by,  and  modeled  after,  the  Roman  Catholic 
practice  of  religious  and  civil  ostracism,  which,  ac- 
cording to  Catholic  church  authorities,  has  been 
practiced  by  the  church  ever  since  its  organiza- 
tion; was  recommended  by  Christ*  himself  and 
actually  put  in  practice  by  St.  Paul.f 

We  find  also,  that  Solon  (594  B.  C.),  recom- 
mended the  "  ostracism"  by  the  people  of  persons 
whose  presence  was  considered  dangerous  to  the 

*  Matt.,  XVIII.,  17. 

+  i  Cor.,  V.  3;  Catholic  Die.,  p.  327. 


THE    RELIGIOUS    BOYCOTT.  97 

peace  and  well  being  of  Athens;  but  that  boycott 
included  the  harsher  element  of  "exclusion  from 
the  city." 

In  cases  of  major  excommunication,  non  toler- 
ati,  pronounced  by  the  pope  or  by  any  bishop  of 
the  Catholic  church,  "the  faithful  are  forbidden  to 
hold  either  religious  or  civil  communication"*  with 
the  excommunicated  person. 

I  certainly  cannot  give  a  better  definition  of 
boycotting  than  to  say  that  it  is  an  agreement  be- 
tween two  or  more  persons  not  "to  hold  either  re- 
ligious or  civil  communication"  with  a  third  per- 
son. Yet  that  is  the  very  definition  which  Cath- 
olic authorities  give  of  the  universal  practice  of 
the  church,  and  certainly  the  Holy  Office  does  not 
mean  to  condemn  a  regular  and  frequent  practice 
of  the  Catholic  church  as  "contrary  to  Christian 
charity." 

The  Pope  himself  has  now  a  boycott  in  full 
force  against  Dr.  Edward  McGlynn  of  the  city  of 
New  York;  a  boycott  which  is,  in  its  terms,  infin- 
itely more  rigorous  and  terrible  than  any  ever  de- 
clared or  enforced  by  any  secular  body  in  Ireland. 

The  church  boycott  delivers  the  victim  imme- 
diately, and  for  eternity,  over  to  the  devil  ;  f  the 

*  Catholic  Die.,  p.  328. 
t  Catholic  Die.,  p.  327. 


90  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

faithful  are  forbidden  to  hold  either  religious  or 
civil  communication  with  him  ;  they  cannot  attend 

a  meeting  at  which  he  is  to  deliver  a  lecture  with- 
* 

out  incurring  the  penalty  of  excommunication  * 
by  contagion  ;  and  if  a  Catholic,  however  devout, 
even  if  he  have  received  communion  within  a 
month,  should  suddenly  die  while  attending  a 
lecture  delivered  by  an  excommunicated  person, 
he  must  be  deprived  of  Christian  burial,  f 

The  body  of  a  devout  Catholic  is  now  lying  in 
a  public  vault  in  New  York  City,  and,  because  he 
died  suddenly  at  one  of  Dr.  McGlynn's  lectures 
on  social  questions,  is  denied  Christian  burial  by 
the  archbishop.  In  other  words,  this  dead  man's 
body  is  denied  Christian  burial  because,  in  his  life- 
time, he  did  not  take  part  in  carrying  out  the 
Pope's  boycott  against  Dr.  McGlynn.  A  very 
common  regard  for  the  ordinary  proprieties 
should  have  induced  His  Holiness  to  declare  his 
own  boycotts  off  before  condemning  the  milder 
Irish  boycotts  as  un-Christian. 

It  is  no  answer  to  this  "  deadly  parallel  "  to 
say  that  the  Irish  boycotts,  although  milder,  are  in 
fact  more  strictly  observed  than  his.  It  is  cer- 
tainly not  his  fault  that  anybody  associates  with  or 

*  So  declared  by  Bishop  McQuade  of  Rochester,  N.'Y. 
t  So  declared  by  Archbishop  Corrigan,  N.  V. 


VATICAN    POLITICS.  99 

speaks  to,  or  deals  with,  Dr.  McGlynn,  after  he  has 
given  an  order  which  requires  them  to  avoid  him. 

Again,  what  is  the  penalty  for  violating  the 
Pope's  rescript  against  the  un-Christian  practice 
of  boycotting  ?  Why,  the  violators  of  the  rescript 
will  simply  be  boycotted  by  the  Pope  ! 

It  is  fortunate,  as  has  been  fully  explained,  that 
this  document  was  not  issued  by  the  Pope  ex 
cathedra,  but  was  issued  on  the  fallible  advice  of 
the  Holy  Office  of  the  Inquisition,  over  the  delib- 
erations of  which  the  Pope  presides  in  person,^  and 
it  is  therefore  possible  to  recall  it  if  it  shall  prove 
to  be  erroneous. 

If  it  effects  its  purpose  without  serious  opposi- 
tion, there  will  be  no  further  action  taken  about 
it ;  so,  also,  if  it  be  quietly  ignored  ;  but  if  it  be 
strenuously  resisted  it  will  be  found  to  be  errone- 
ous and  withdrawn. 

At  any  rate  that  is  the  fixed  reputation  of  the 
Vatican  in  the  matter  of  issuing  political  bulls 
against  the  children  of  the  church,  and  there  is.no 
reason  to  suspect  a  change  of  policy  at  this  time. 

*  Catholic  Die.,  p.  447. 


IOO  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

CHAPTER   XVI. 

VATICAN    POLITICS THE    ITALIAN    RING. 

To  get  any  clear  idea  of  the  motives  and  pur- 
poses of  the  Vatican  in  dealing  with  the  Irish 
question  it  is  absolutely  necessary  to  have  a  gen- 
eral knowledge  of  the  character  (religious  and  po- 
litical) of  the  papal  office,  and  of  the  personnel  of 
its  incumbents  at  various  periods,  and  also  a 
knowledge  of  the  origin,  character  and  personnel 
of  the  College  of  Cardinals. 

There  is  a  vast  difference  between  the  Catholic 
religion,  the  Catholic  church  and  the  Catholic 
hierarchy.  The  first  consists  of  principles  and 
articles  of  faith;  the  second  is  the  organization  by 
and  through  which  these  principles  and  articles 
are  taught  and  inculcated,  and  the  third  is  the 
body  of  priestly  officers  charged  with  administer- 
ing the  affairs  of  the  church  and  promoting  the 
religion. 

The  religion  is  unchangeable,  no  matter  how 
much  the  interpretation  of  its  principles  and  arti- 
cles may  vary.  The  organization,  which  includes 
discipline,  ceremonies,  etc.,  may  be  changed  by 
the  hierarchy  as  the  ever  changing  conditions  of 
the  world  may  require. 


POPE    AND    CARDINALS.  IOI 

The  hierarchy  is  constantly  changing  and  is 
subject  to  all  the  defects  that  are  incident  to  hu- 
man folly,  ambition  and  vice. 

It  is  with  this  changeable  human  hierarchy, 
and  with  it  alone,  that  I  am  dealing;  and  it  is 
acknowledged,  by  all  Catholic  writers,  to  have 
been  at  various  times,  good  and  bad,  weak  and 
strong,  covetous  and  generous,  worldly  and  disin- 
terested. I  shall  therefore  speak  freely,  feeling 
that  none  can  be  reasonably  offended,  in  his  re- 
ligious sensitiveness,  by  the  statement  of  "truths, 
however  painful,"*  which  do  not  concern  the  in- 
tegrity of  his  religious  principles. 

The  controlling  power  of  the  Catholic  hierarchy 
consists  of  the  Pope  and  a  college  of  seventy 
Cardinals.f 

The  Pope  appoints  the  Cardinals  and  the  Car- 
dinals elect  the  Pope.  The  whole  church  organ- 
ization is  therefore  under  the  absolute  and  exclu- 
sive control  of  a  self-perpetuating  body  of  seventy- 
one  men. 

The  tremendous  power  wielded  by  those  sev- 
enty-one men,  cannot  be  questioned  by  any  per- 
son, or  body  of  persons,  in  the  church;  and  if  their 
political  as  well  as  their  religious  edicts  are  obeyed 
by  Catholics,  it  will  at  once  be  apparent  that  their 

*  See  Lives  of  the  Popes,  by  J.  C.  Earle,  p.  6. 
t  Catholic  Die.,  p.  119. 


102  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

support  must  be  of  incalculable  value  to  political 
sovereigns,  and  that  the  temptation  to  corruption 
and  worldly  ambition  is  enormous. 

It  will  further  appear,  at  once,  that  if  the  Col- 
lege of  Cardinals  should  ever  fall  into  the  hands 
of  a  few  designing  families  it  would  be  impossible 
to  prevent  them  from  creating  or  perpetuating  a 
most  exclusive  aristocracy,  as  powerful  and  irre- 
sponsible as  any  that  ever  held  sway  upon  earth. 

These  are  the  very  things  that  have  transpired 
in  the  See  of  Rome. 

The  College  of  Cardinals  for  over  eight  hundred 
years  (ever  since  it  was  created)  *  has  been  com- 
posed almost  exclusively  of  Italians,  and  these 
have  been  nearly  all  members  of  a  little  Italian 
nobility  consisting  of  a  very  few  families. 

While  the  great  teachers,  preachers,  bishops, 
and  priests,  representing  more  than  nine-tenths  of 
the  Catholic  world,  have  been  practically  excluded 
(being  admitted  only  in  a  small  and  powerless 
minority),  brothers,  cousins,  uncles,  nephews,  and 
even  fathers  and  sons,  of  the  little  Italian  nobility, 
have  for  generation  after  generation  sat  beside 
each  other  in  the  College  of  Cardinals. 

To  illustrate  this,  a  few  examples,  from  stand- 
ard Catholic  authorities,  will  suffice  : 

*  Catholic  Die.,  p.  118. 


103 

The  present  Pope,  John  V.  R.  L.  Pecci,  is  the 
son  of  Count  Domenico,  and  has  a  brother  in  the 
College  of  Cardinals1;  Pius  IX.,  John  M.  M. 
Ferretti,  was  the  son  of  Count  Jerome  Ferretti 
and  Countess  Catharine  Solazzi2 ;  Gregory  XVI., 
Bartholemew  Albert  Cappellari,  "  was  born  at 
Belluno,  in  Lombardy,  September  i8th,  1795,  of 
parents  belonging  to  the  nobles  of  the  place3;" 
Pius  VI II.,  Francis  X.  Castiglioni,  was  "  born 
(November  2Oth,  1761)  of  noble  family4"  and 
appointed  as  his  secretary  Cardinal  Albini,  of  the 
house  of  Albini,  "  one  of  the  most  illustrious  and 
noble  in  Italy,  boasting  even  of  imperial  allian- 
ces5 ;"  Leo  XII.,  Hannibal  della  Genga,  "was 
the  son  of  Count  Hillary  della  Genga6 ; "  and 
Pius  VII.,  Barnabas  Chiaramonti,  who  was  a  rel- 
ative of  Pius  VI,7  derived  ''high  nobility"  from 
his  father.8  These  constitute  the  last  five  Popes, 
and  the  statement  which  I  have  given  illustrates 
how  the  papacy  is  confined,  not  merely  to  Ital 
ians,  but  to  the  old  Italian  political  aristocracy. 

But  that  is  not  all ;  four  of  the  Popes — Leo  X., 

1  M.  F.  Egan  in  "The  Century,"  May,  1888. 

2  Shea's  Life  of  Pius  IX.,  p.  1 1. 

3  The  Last  Four  Popes,  by  Cardinal  Wiseman,  p.  376. 

4  The  Last  Four  Popes,  p.  323. 

5  The  Last  Four  Popes,  p.  330. 

6  The  Last  Four  Popes,  p.  195. 

7  The  Last  Four  Popes,  p.  328-9. 

8  The  Last  Four  Popes,  p.  37. 


IO4  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

Clement  VII.,  Pius  IV.,  and  Leo  XI. — were  im- 
mediate members  of  the"  Medici  family1  ;  three 
Popes — Innocent  III.,  his  nephew  Gregory  IX., 
and  Innocent  XII  I. — were  immediate  members  of 
the  Conti  family2;  two  of  the  Popes — Sixtus 
IV.  and  his  nephew  Julius  II. — were  immediate 
members  of  the  Rovere  family3 ;  two  of  the 
Popes — Nicholas  III.  and  Benedict  XIII. — were 
immediate  members  of  the  Orsini  family4 ;  two 
of  the  Popes — Calixtus  III.  and  his  nephew  Alex- 
ander VI. — were  immediate  members  of  the  Bor- 
gia family.5 

Cardinal  Caesar  Borgia  was  a  son  of  Pope  Al- 
exander VI.,6  and  sat  as  a  member  of  the  College 
of  Cardinals,7  over  which  his  father  presided. 

These  are  but  a  few  examples  taken  from  the 
lives  of  popes  who  lived  and  reigned  since  the 
time  of  Adrian  and  Alexander,  and  during  the  time 
that  the  Irish  people  have  been  taking  so  large  a 
share  of  their  politics  from  Rome. 

The   power   and    prestige  of  the   papacy  have 

1  Earle's  Lives  of  the  Popes,  pp.  366,  374,  393  and  412. 

2  Earle's  Lives  of  the  Popes,  pp.  266,  279,  and  436. 

3  Earle's  Lives  of  the  Popes,  p.  360. 

4  Earle's  Lives  of  the  Popes,  pp.  298  and  437. 

5  Earle's  Lives  of  the  Popes,  pp.  343  and  356. 

6  There  was  nothing  illicit  in  this.     The  Pope  was  a  married  layman. 
The  cardinals  are  not  bound  to  choose  one  of  their  own  body;   a  layman,, 
and  even  a  married  man  may  be  lawfully  elected."     Catholic  Die.,  p.  679.. 

7  Earle's  Lives  of  the  Popes,  p.  356. 


PAPAL    FAMILIES.  1 05 

always  excited  the  most  consuming1  ambitions  and 
burning  jealousies  among  the  eligible  families. 

Each  family,  and  combinations  of  families,  in 
turn,  sought  to  gain  control  of  the  College  of  Car- 
dinals. 

An  example  of  this  is  given  in  the  life  of  Alex- 
ander VI.,  who,  "  To  satisfy  his  ambition  and  ex- 
alt the  princes  of  his  own  family,  too  often  out- 
raged the  laws  of  justice.  It  was  with  such  views 
that  he  sought  the  ruin  of  the  houses  of  Colonna 
and  Orsini."^ 

This  Borgia  family  was  originally  from  Spain, 
and  Earle,  with  Hefele  and  others,  speak  of  Alex- 
ander VI.  as  an  exceptionally  "unworthy  pope." 
This  is  undoubtedly  true,  but  it  does  not  alter  the 
fact  that  the  papacy  has  been  in  the  hands  of  a 
very  wicked,  ambitious  and  designing  man,  who 
was  duly  elected  to  the  papal  chair  and  filled  it 

for   nine  years,  and  that  if  he  had  succeeded  in 

• 

doing  what  his  more  favored  Italian  predecessors 
did,  the  Borgia  family,  instead  of  being  hunted 
from  Italy  by  Pope  Julius  II.,  as  they -were,  might 
still  be  in  control  of  the  Vatican,  making  political 
trades  with  England  and  issuing  rescripts  to  Ire- 
land ;  for,  if  they  had  once  secured  the  necessary 
majority  of  their  own  family  in  the  college,  no 

*  Earle's  Lives  of  the  Popes,  p.  357  ;  quoting  Mariana,  Lib.  26. 


IO6  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

power  in  or  out  of  the  church  could  have  di-s 
lodged  them. 

Besides,  no  candid  historian  will  claim  that  Al- 
exafader  VI.  was  any  worse  than  his  predecessors, 
Sergius  III.,  John  X.,  John  XL,  John  XII.,  John 
XVI.,  or  John  XIX.,  the  first  three  of  whom  were 
(t  elevated  to  the  papal  throne  by  the  intrigues  of 
the  notorious  Marozia,"^  and  the  last  of  whom, 
with  Benedict  VIII.,  tried  to  have  the  Holy  See 
made  a  legal  '''inheritance  in  their  family"^ 

These,  bear  in  mind,  were  not  anti-popes,  but 
duly  elected  and  recognized  popes  of  the  church, 
although  Sergius  III.  was,  for  some  years,  an  anti- 
pope  before  being  elected  to  the  papal  chair.J 

We  had,  recently,  an  illustration  of  the  nepotism 
and  family  influence  still  prevailing  at  the  Vati- 
can, in  that,  while  the  Irish  priesthood,  represent- 
ing more  genuine  Catholics  than  does  the  Italian 
priesthood,  had  not  a  single  representative  in  the 
College  of  Cardinals,  and  while  the  Italians  had 
more  than  a  two-thirds  majority  of  that  college, 
two  youthful  offshoots  of  the  effete  Italian  nobility 
were  sent  to  Queen  Victoria,  also  a  temporal  and 
spiritual  sovereign  (head  of  the  Episcopal  Church) 
with  some  sort  of  a  trinket  as  a  jubilee  gift,  and, 

*  Earle's  Lives  of  the  Popes,  p.  187,  190-2. 
t  Earle's  Lives  of  the  Popes,  p.  209. 
t  Earle's  Lives  of  the  Popes,  pp.  185-7. 


ORIGIN  OF    THE    CARDINALS. 

on  its  safe  delivery,  to  honor  the  Queen,  they  were 
both  created  cardinals.  This  is  also  an  illustra- 
tion of  the  closer  relation  between  the  "nobilities" 
of  England  and  Italy  than  exists  between  the  Ital- 
ans  and  their  Irish  co-religionists. 

The  political  scheming  which  has  been  resorted 
to  for  the  purpose  of  securing  control  of  the  Holy 
See  was  worthy  of  modern  political  bosses,  and  is 
very  interesting. 

The  Pope,  who  for  the  first  six  hundred  years 
after  Christ,  was  recognized  simply  as  the  Bishop 
of  Rome,  and  exercised  no  jurisdiction  beyond  that 
See,  was,  until  the  year  1059  "  chosen  like  other 
bishops  by  the  clergy  and  people,  with  the  assent 
of  the  neighboring  bishops."' 

In  that  year  (1059)  the  College  of  Cardinals 
was  instituted  and  consisted  of  six  bishops.f  The 
number  of  cardinals  was  gradually  increased  by 
succeeding  popes,  very  much  as  our  United  States 
Supreme  Court  has  been  increased,  and,  no  doubt, 
for  the  same  purpose,  namely  :  to  change  from 
time  to  time  the  balance  of  power.  This  practice 
continued  for  over  five  hundred  years,  when,  in 
1586,  the  number  was  finally  fixed  at  not  exceed- 
ing seventy.  J  v5^e 


OF  THE 


*  Catholic  Die.,  p.  678. 
t  Catholic  Die.,  118,  679. 
t  Catholic  Die.,  119. 


IO8  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

The  Holy  See,  as  thus  constituted,  claims  the 
Divine  right  to  exercise  political  as  well  as  relig- 
ious sovereignty  in  every  country.  This  claim 
was  emphasized  by  Monsignor  Preston,  Vicar  Gen- 
eral of  the  Arch-diocese  of  New  York,  in  his  "  New 
Year's  Sermon"  (January,  1888)  in  which  he 
said:  li  Whoever  says,  I  will  take  my  religion 
from  Rome  but  not  my  politics,  is  not  a  good 
Catholic:1 

But  it  needed  not  the  assurance  of  Monsignor 
Preston  to  advise  us  of  the  Pope's  claim  of  tem- 
poral authority  over  his  religious  followers. 

Prior  to  the  year  860  the  Pope  was  inducted 
into  office  as  "  Vicar  of  our  Savior  Jesus  Christ," 
and  the  miter  was  placed  upon  his  head  as  one  of 
the  emblems  of  his  priestly  authority. 

Some  time  between  the  years  858  and  867, 
Pope  Nicholas  I.  united  a  kingly  crown  with  the 
miter,  and  between  that  time  and  the  year  1200 
(the  exact  date  is  uncertain),  a  second  crown  was 
added,*  and  the  third  crown  was  added  about  the 
year  1370,  thus  completing  the  tiara. 

Ever  since  that  time,  "  The  tiara  is  placed  on 
the  Pope's  head,  at  his  coronation,  by  the  second 
Cardinal  Deacon,  in  the  loggia  of  St.  Peter's,  with 
the  words,  '  Receive  the  tiara  adorned  with  three 

Catholic  Die.,  p.  796 


THE    RESCRIPT    POLITICAL.  1 09 

crowns,  and  know  that  thou  art  Father  of  Princes 
and  Kings,  Ruler  of  the  World,  Vicar  of  our  Sa- 
vior Jesus  Christ  '."* 

Even  in  this  coronation  ceremony,  as  in  the 
practice  of  the  Vatican,  the  religious  office  is  sub- 
ordinated to  the  political  offices. 

In  face  of  all  these  undenied  and  undeniable 
facts,  how  silly  it  is  to  enter  into  nice  disputations 
about  the  religious  character  of  the  Pope's  rescript. 

The  rescript  was  issued  by  the  Pope  as  a  tem- 
poral sovereign,  was  intended  as  a  political  edict, 
and  obedience  to  it  will  be  an  acknowledgment 
that  the  self-revolving,  self-perpetuating  Italian 
Ring  which  I  have  described,  has  a  Divine  right 
to  rule  in  the  political  affairs  of  Ireland. 

It  can  have  no  other  meaning. 

*  Catholic  Die.,  p.  796,  citing  "Beitrage,"  by  Bishop  Hefele,  Vol.  II.,  p. 
236,  et.  seq. 


I  IO  IRELAND   AND    THE    POPE. 


CHAPTER   XVII. 

CONCLUSION. 

The  true  and  manly  position  of  the  Irish 
people  in  this  matter  must  be,  that,  whatever  its 
purpose,  the  rescript  is  an  impudent  interference 
with  Irish  politics  and  ought  to  be  promptly  and 
effectually  repudiated. 

It  will  not  do  to  change  the  movement  in  order 
to  avoid  the  letter,  or  meet  the  spirit,  of  the  re- 
script, for  that  will  instantly  destroy  the  confi- 
dence of  sympathizers  everywhere. 

Well  may  such  sympathizers  ask,  as  many  even 
now  are  asking:  What  is  the  use  of  helping  Irish 
movements  if  the  Pope  can  still  kill  them,  as  for 
seven  hundred  years  he  has  been  killing  them,  just 
at  the  critical  moment  of  dawning  victory  ? 

A  quietus  must  now  and  forever  be  put  upon 
Irish  political  rescripts  from  Rome.  Otherwise 
confidence  in  "  Irish  movements  "  will  be,  for  an- 
other generation,  absolute'  -  destroyed. 

The  spirit  displayed  by  so  many  thousands  of  the 
Irish  people,  both  in  Ireland  and  America,  in  their 
protests  against  this  latest  edict,  is  most  gratifying 
and  encouraging;  but  there  have  also  been  mani- 


CONCLUSION — STOP  PETER  S  PENCE. 

Tested  some  of  the  old  and  fatal  symptoms  of  dis- 
integration, which  have  always  been  observed  to 
follow  papal  rescripts.  For  example,  at  the  meet- 
ing held  in  Limerick  on  Sunday,  May  27th,  while 
twenty  thousand  enthusiastic  people,  in  spite  of 
the  bishop's  anathemas,  attended,  it  was  observed 
that  "  there  were  no  priests  present,  and  the  lead- 
ing Catholics,  who  had  previously  been  conspicu- 
ous at  the  meetings,  were  to-day  conspicuous  by 
their  absence." 

The  meaning  of  this  is  too  plain  to  students  of 
Irish  history. 

It  means,  unless  checked  by  prompt  and  effec- 
tive measures,  disintegration  and  death  to  the 
Irish  Home  Rule  movement. 

Are  -there  no  patriotic  priests  in  Limerick? 
Yes,  but  true  to  the  prophecies  of  Burke  and  Pitt 
and  Sheil,  Maynooth  and  Rome  have  established 
in  them  a  principle  of  subserviency  stronger  than 
their  -patriotism — a  readiness  to  sacrifice  the  in- 
terests of  Ireland  and  the  hopes  and  aspirations  of 
her  people  to  the  discipline  imposed  by  the  church 
authorities  at  Rome. 

In  this  crisis  and  in  the  future  political  struggles 
it  is  manifest  that  one  of  two  things  must  be  done  : 
the  Irish  priests  must  break  away  from  their  slav- 
ish subserviency  to  the  Italian  Ring  and  reassume 


112  IRELAND    AND    THE    POPE. 

the  independent  position  which  was  held  by  the 
clergy  of  Ireland  from  the  time  of  St.  Patrick  to 
the  coming  of  Cardinal  Paparo  ;  or  if  that,  unfortu- 
nately, cannot  be,  then  the  people  must  break 
away  from  all  political  alliance  with  the  priesthood 
and  absolutely  reject  it  as  an  element  in  political 
affairs  ;  or  finally,  failing  both'  of  these,  the  Irish 
people  must  be  content  to  wear  the  chain  of  Eng- 
land with  the  chain  of  Rome,  until  some  future 
generation  shall  discard  both  chains  together. 

It  is  not  necessary  that  any  change  should  be 
made,  either  by  priest  or  people,  in  their  religion. 

There  were  Irish  saints,  afterwards  canonized 
by  the  Roman  Church,  who  never  recognized  any 
allegiance  to  the  See  of  Rome,  except  to  receive 
the  abstract  doctrines  of  Catholicity  from  that  cen- 
tre ;  but  I  venture,  on  the  authority  of  their 
canonization,  to  say,  that  they  were  at  least  as  good 
Catholics  as  any  of  the  ultramontane  Irishmen 
of  the  present  day. 

Neither  is  it  necessary  that  there  should  be  any 
change  in  their  relations  to  the  church  as  an  or- 
ganization, but  only  that  the  Roman  hierarchy  be 
held  strictly  to  their  spiritual  trust  and  boycotted, 
if  necessary,  out  of  their  political  pretensions. 

If  the  people  of  Ireland  would,  by  general  con- 
cert of  action,  suspend  payments  on  the  bill  of 


CONCLUSION — STOP  PETERS   PENCE.  113 

sale  of  Ireland,  given  by  Pope  Adrian  to  King 
Henry  II.,  until  the  liberty  which  that  instrument 
blasted  shall  be  recovered,  nothing  more  would  be 
heard  forever  of  papal  interference  with  Irish  pol- 
itics, and  the  Irish  priests  would  be  left  free  to 
hasten  the  renewal  of  tribute. 


LIST    OF    AUTHORITIES. 


Of  the  many  of  the  authorities  which  I  have  cited,  there  are  several  editions 
differently  paged.  To  avoid  misleading  and  hyper-criticism,  I  here  insert  a  list  of 
my  authorities  with  the  edition  referred  to: 


TITLE. 

History  of  Ireland 
History  of  Ireland 
History  of  Ireland 
History  of  Ireland 
History  of  Ireland 
History  of  Ireland 
History  of  Ireland 
History  of  Ireland 
History  of  Ireland 
Irish  before  the  Conquest 
Irish  Hierarchy 
Ecclesiastical  Hist,  of  Ireland 
Irish  Landlord,  The 
Ireland  As  She  Is 
Ireland  of  To-day 
New  Ireland 

History  of  Our  Own  Times 
Outlines  of  Irish  Histoiy 
Ireland  Since  the  Union 
Lights  and  Shades  of  Ireland 
The  Parnell  Movement 
Catholic  Dictionary 
The  Last  Four  Popes 
Life  of  Pius  IX. 
Lives  of  the  Popes 
The  Pope 
English  Misrule 


EDITION. 
Kelly,  1885 
Virtue,  E.  &  R.,  1845 
First 

2nd  O'Kelly's  Trans. 
Cameron  &  F. 
Kenmare  Convent,  I  876 
Donahoe,  1857 
Virtue,  E.  &  R.,  1845 
Cameron  &  F. 
First 

Sadlier,  1855 
Cummisky,  1838 
Donahoe,  1870 
Kelly,  1877 
Bancroft,  1881 
Third  / 

Belford,  C.  &  Co.,  1887 
First 

Belford,  C.  &  Co.,   1887 
French,  1851 
Benziger,  1886 
Catholic  Pub.  Society,  1 884 
Donahoe,  1858 
Kelly,  1877 
Kelly,  1877 
Pustet,  §885 
Lynch,  C.  &  M.,  1877 


AUTHOR. 
M.  Haverty 
S.   O'Halloran 
Thos.  Wright 
Abbe  MacGeoghegan 
D'Arcy  McGee 
M.  F.  Cusack 
Thos.  Mooney 
Wm.  Dolby 
John  Mitchell 
M.  C.  Ferguson 
Rev.  Thos.  Walsh 
Rev.  P.  J.  Carew 
Rev.  P.  Lavelle 
J.  J.  Clancy 
M.  F.  Sullivan 
A.  M.  Sullivan 
Justin  McCarthy 
Justin  McCarthy 
Justin  McCarthy 
Mrs.  A.  Nicholson 
T.  P.  O'Connor 
Addis  &  Arnold 
Cardinal  Wiseman 
J.  G.  Shea 
J.  C.  Earle 
Monsignor  Cape) 
Rev.  T.  N.  Burke 


APPENDIX  A. 


Full  translation  of  the  Bull  of  Pope  Adrian  IV.,  granting  Ireland  to  King 
Henry  II. 

[From  O'Halloran's  History  of  Ireland,  p.  305.] 

"Adrian,  bishop,  servant  of  the  servants  of  God,  to  his  dearest  son  in 
Christ,  the  illustrious  King  of  England,  greeting,  and  apostolical  benediction: 

"Full  laudably  and  profitably  hath  your  magnificence  conceived  the 
design  of  propagating  your  glorious  renown  on  earth,  and  completing  your 
reward  of  eternal  happiness  in  heaven  ;  while  as  a  Catholic  prince,  you  are 
intent  on  enlarging  the  borders  of  the  church,  teaching  the  truth  of  the 
Christian  faith  to  the  ignorant  and  rude,  extirpating  the  roots  of  vice  from 
the  field  of  the  Lord,  and  for  the  more  convenient  execution  of  this  purpose, 
requiring  the  counsel  and  favor  of  the  apostolic  See,  in  which  the  maturer 
your  deliberation  and  the  greater  the  discretion  of  your  procedure,  by  so 
much  the  happier  we  trust  will  be  your  progress,  with  the  assistance  of  the 
Lord,  as  all  things  are  used  to  come  to  a  prosperous  end  and  issue,  which 
take  their  beginning  from  the  ardor  of  faith  and  the  love  of  religion. 

"  There  is,  indeed,  no  doubt  but  that  Ireland,  and  all  the  islands  on  which 
Christ,  the  sun  of  righteousness  hath  shone,  and  which  have  received  the 
doctrine  of  the  Christian  faith,  do  belong  to  the  jurisdiction  of  St.  Peter  and 
the  Holy  Roman  Church,  as- your  excellency  also  doth  acknowledge;  and 
therefore,  we  are  the  more  solicitous  to  propagate  the  righteous  plantation 
of  faith  in  this  land,  and  the  branch  acceptable  to  God,  as  we  have  the 
secret  conviction  of  conscience  that  this  is  more  especially  our  bound  en 
duty.  You  then,  my  dear  son  in  Christ,  have  signified  to  us  your  desire  to 
enter  into  the  island  of  Ireland,  in  order  to  reduce  the  people  to  obedience 
under  the  laws,  and  to  extirpate  the  plants  of  vice;  and  that  you  are  willing 
to  pay  from  each  [house]  a  yearly  pension  of  one  penny  to  St.  Peter,  and  that 
will  preserve  the  rights  of  the  churches  of  the  land  whole  and  inviolate. 
We,  therefore,  with  that  grace  and  acceptance  suited  to  your  pious  and  laud- 
able design,  and  favorably  assenting^to  your  petition,  do  hold  it  good  and 
acceptable,  that,  for  extending  the  borders  of  the  church,  restraining  the 


1 1  6  APPENDIX. 

progress  of  vice,  for  the  correction  of  manners,  the  planting  of  virtue,  and 
the  increase  of  religion,  you  enter  this  island,  and  execute  therein  whatever 
shall  pertain  to  the  honor  of  God  and  welfare  of  the  land ;  and  that  the 
people  of  this  land  receive  you  honorably,  and  reverence  you  as  their  lord ; 
the  rights  of  their  churches  still  remaining  sacred  and  inviolate,  and  saving 
to  St.  Peter  the  annual  pension  of  one  penny  from  every  house. 

"If  then  you  be  resolved  to  carry  the  design  you  have  conceived  into 
effectual  execution,  study  to  form  this  nation  to  virtue  and  manners,  and 
labor  by  yourself,  and  others  you  shall  judge  meet  for  this  work,  in  faith, 
word,  and  life,  that  the  church  may  be  there  adorned ;  that  the  religion  of 
the  Christian  faith  may  be  planted  and  grow  up,  and  that  all  things  pertain- 
ing to  the  honor  of  God,  and  salvation  of  souls,  be  so  ordered,  that  you  may 
be  entitled  to  the  fulness  of  heavenly  reward  from  God,  and  obtain  a  glo- 
rious renown  on  earth  throughout  all  ages.  Given  at  Rome,  in  the  year  of 
Salvation  1156." 


APPENDIX  B. 

Full  translation  of  the  Bull  of  Pope  Alexander  III.,  confirming  the  grant 
of  Adrian. 

[From  O'Halloran's  History  of  Ireland,  page  306.] 

"Alexander,  bishop,  servant  of  the  servants  of  God,  to  his  most  dear  son 
in  Christ,  the  illustrious  King  of  England,  health  and  apostolical  benediction. 

"Forasmuch  as  these  things,  which  have  been  on  good  reasons  granted  by 
our  predecessors,  deserve  to  be  confirmed  in  the  fullest  manner,  and  con- 
sidering the  grant  of  the  dominion  of  the  realm  of  Ireland  by  the  venerable 
Pope  Adrian,  we,  pursuing  his  footsteps,  do  ratify  and  confirm  the  same, 
(reserving  to  St.  Peter,  and  to  the  Holy  Roman  Church,  as  well  in  England 
as  in  Ireland,  the  yearly  pension  of  one  penny  from  every  house)  provided 
that  the  abominations  of  the  land  being  removed,  that  barbarous  people, 
Christians  only  in  name,  may,  by  your  means,  be  reformed,  and  their  live5 
and  conversation  mended,  so  that  their  disordered  church  being  thus  re- 
duced to  regular  discipline,  that  nation  may,  with  the  name  of  Christians, 
be  so  in  act  and  deed.  Given  at  Rome,  in  the  year  of  Salvation  1172." 


APPENDIX.  I  I  7 

APPENDIX  C. 

THE  TEXT  OF  THE  LAST  RESCRIPT. 

(From  the  "Dublin  Freeman,"  May  5th,  1888.) 

The  following  is  a  translation  of  the  Latin  text  of  the  circular  addressed 
by  the  Congregation  of  the  Holy  Office  to  the  Irish  Bishops  in  reference  to 
the  Plan  of  Campaign  and  to  boycotting: — 

MY  LORD — A  letter  was  issued  by  the  Supreme  Congregation  of  the 
Holy  Roman  and  Universal  Inquisition  on  the  2Oth  of  the  present  month  of 
April,  for  transmission  to  the  Archbishops  and  Bishops  of  Ireland. 

Herewith  I  send  your  Lordship  a  copy  of  this  letter,  and  having  dis- 
charged this  duty,  and  wishing  you  every  blessing  in  the  Lord,  I  remain 
yours  devotedly, 

JOHN  CARDINAL  SIMEONI,  Prefect. 
tjf  D.  ARCHBISHOP  OF  TYRE,  Secretary. 

S.  Congregation  of  the  Propaganda,  Rome,  April  23rd,  1888. 
I 

[COPY.] 

MY  LORD — Whenever  the  affairs  of  their  country  seemed  to  require  it  the 
Apostolic  See  has  frequently  addressed  to  the  Irish  people — towards  whom 
it  has  always  shown  special  affection — seasonable  words  of  warning  and 
counsel  with  the  object  of  enabling  them  to  defend  or  to  assert  their  rights 
without  prejudice  to  justice  or  to  public  tranquillity.  At  the  present  mo- 
ment our  Holy  Father  Pope  Leo  XIII.,  fearing  lest  right  conceptions  of 
justice  and  charity  should  be  perverted  amongst  that  people  in  consequence 
of  that  mode  of  warfare  called  the  Plan  of  Campaign,  which  has  been  em- 
ployed in  that  country  in  contests  between  letters  and  holders  of  lands  or 
farms,  as  also  in  consequence  of  a  form  of  proscription  in  connection  with 
the  same  contests  known  as  boycotting,  commissioned  the  Supreme  Con- 
gregation of  the  Holy  Roman  and  Universal  Inquisition  to  make  the  matter 
the  subject  of  grave  and  careful  examination.  Accordingly  the  following 
question  was  submitted  to  the  Most  Eminent  Fathers  who  share  with  me 
the  office  of  General  Inquisitors  against  heretical  error,  viz:  In  contests  be- 
tween letters  and  holders  of  lands  or  farms  in  Ireland  is  it  lawful  to  have 
recourse  to  those  means  known  as  the  Plan  of  Campaign  and  Boycotting — 


Il8  APPENDIX. 

and  their  Eminences,  having  long   and  maturely  weighed  the  matter,  re- 
plied in  the  negative. 

Our  Holy  Father  confirmed  and  approved  this  reply  on  Wednesday,  the 
18th  of  the  present  month. 

How  equitable  this  decision  is  any  one  will  see  who  reflects  that  a  rent 
fixed  by  mutual  consent  cannot,  without  violation  of  contract,  be  reduced 
at  the  arbitrary  will  of  the  tenant  alone.  This  the  more,  since  for  the  set- 
tling of  such  contests  courts  have  been  established  which,  allowance  being 
made  even  for  failure  of  crops  or  of  disasters  which  may  have  occurred,  re- 
duce excessive  rents  and  bring  them  within  the  limits  of  equity. 

Again,  it  cannot  be  held  to  be  lawful  that  rent  should  be  extorted  from 
tenants  and  deposited  with  unknown  persons,  no  account  being  taken  of  the 
landlord. 

V  Finally,  it  is  altogether  foreign  to  natural  justice  and  to  Christian  charity 
that  a  new  form  of  persecution  and  of  proscription  should  ruthlessly  be  put 
in  force  against  persons  who  are  satisfied  with,  and  are  prepared  to  pay  the 
rent  agreed  on  with  their  landlord;  or  against  persons  who  in  the  exercise 
of  their  right  take  vacant  farms. 

Your  lordship  will  therefore — prudently  but  effectively — admonish  the 
clergy  and  the  people  in  reference  to  this  matter ,  and  exhort  them  to  ob- 
serve Christian  charity,  and  not  to  overstep  the  bounds  of  justice  whilst 
seeking  relief  from  the  evils  which  afflict  them.  — Your  devoted  servant  in 
the  Lord,  R.  CARD.  MONACO. 

Rome,  20th  April,  1888. 


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